LIBRAR\LOF CONGRESS. 




UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



O- 




^y^^yuyi^uc^r^ 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



The First American. 



D. D. THOMPSON. 



Our cTiildren shall behold his fame, 

The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeingf man. 

Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame; 
New birth of our new soil — the Jii it A»ie7-ica>t. 

— Lou ELL 



POPULAR EDITION. I 



CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS. 
NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON. 






Copyright 

By CRANSTON & CURTS, 

1894. 



Popular Kdition. 



PREFACE. 



THIS volume is designed to entertain and in- 
form those who desire to read about Abraham 
Lincoln, his words and deeds. It has been pre- 
pared with special reference to young people, and 
for use in schools in connection with the celebra- 
tion of Lincoln's birthday. Those who wish to 
know more about him than is here related are re- 
ferred to the following excellent books, to which 
the writer acknowledges his indebtedness : 

Isaac N. Arnold : Life of Lincoln. A. C. McClurg & Co., 
Chicago. 

W. 0. Stoddaed: Life of Lincoln. Fords, Howard & 
Hulbert, New York. 

J. G. Holland • Life of Lincoln. 

Herndon and Weik: Story of a Great Life. Belford, 
Clarke & Co., Chicago. 

John Robert Irelan : Life of Lincoln. 

John T. Morse, Jr.: Life of Lincoln. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. 

Henry J. Raymond: Lincoln's Life and Times. Hurst 

& Co., New York. 

Allen Thorndike Rice: Reminiscences of Lincoln. 
North American Review, New York. 

L. E. Chittenden: Recollections of Lincoln. Harper 
and Brothers, New York. 

L. E. Chittenden : Personal Reminiscences. Richmond, 
Croscup & Co., New York. 



4 PREFACE. 

Noah Brooks: Life of Lincoln. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York. 

Chas. W. French: Life of Lincoln. Funk and Wag- 
nails, New York. 

F. B. Carpenter: Six Months in the White House. 
The Independent, New York. 

M. Louise Putnam : Children's Life of Lincoln. A. C. 
McClurg & Co., Chicago. 

C. G. Leland : Life of Lincoln. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York. 

J. B. McClure: Anecdotes of Lincoln. Rhodes and 
McClure, Chicago. 

G. M. Van Buren : Lincoln's Voice and Pen. Robert 
Clarke & Co., Cincinnati. 

J. H. Barrett : Life and Administration of Lincoln. 

D. D. T. 
Chicago. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Lincoln's Childhood, 9 

Removal to Indiana, 13 

Lincoln's Boyhood, 16 

A Storekeeper in Illinois, 24 

The Black Hawk War 31 

In Public Life, 33 

Lincoln's " Keynote " Speech, 45 

The Lincoln and Douglas Debate, 49 

Lincoln's Cooper Institute Speech, 56 

Secret of Lincoln's Power as a Speaker, 58 

Lincoln's Nomination for the Presidency, 63 

The Moral Aspects op the Campaign of 1860, 68 

" One War AT A Time," 73 

Considering the Emancipation Proclamation, .... 77 

The Gettysburg Speech, 81 

Mr. Lincoln's Tenderness, 83 

Mr. Lincoln's Religious Belief, 97 

Lincoln and his Fa.mily, 105 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Death of Lincoln, 109 

Lincoln's Autobiography, 113 

LiNCOLNIANA, 121 

My Captain, 215 

Words of Lincoln, 216 

Lincoln's Temperance Address, 223 



Hbrabam Xlncoln. 



Born in EBttfucJtg, iBbruarg 12, 1809. 
B}oDBb fo Jinbtana in 1817. 
IKnuEt) fo Jlltnoia in 1830. 
(ElBtfBb fo fljE Illinois lE^jisIalure in 1834-. 
^reaiiiEnftal (Eletfor on IDfjig SLirJtBf, 1840, 
BarriEt) Marg Sotib, BoDEinbEr 4, 1842. 
(HlEcfBb fo CIongrEaa, 1846. 
lintoIn-^DUglaa ^EbafE, 1858. 
©omtnafEb for prsaibEnf af CHIjicagD, Mag 16, 1860. 
(ElEtfBb PrEaibEnt BooBmbEr 6, 1860. 
^Inauguraltb J^rsaibEnf, IKartlj 4, 1861. 
5«BUEb Jtraf rail for 75,000 BoIuntBEra, Jlpril 16, 1861. 
3:nau0urafBb ^rBaibBnf for ;§Etr)nb 9LErm, Barr^ 4, 1865. 
^Ijol bg loljn WMkie BddI^, Jribag, Jlpril 14, 1865. 
^iBb Bpril 15, 1865. 
BuriBb af ;§prin0tiBlb, 3III., Mag 3, 1865. 



Abraham Lincoln. 



LINCOLN'S CHILDHOOD. 

" A LL that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my 
rjL augel mother— blessings on her memory." 
So spoke Abraham Lincoln of his mother, after he 
had become famous. She died when he was yet a 
child. From his father he inherited his name, his 
humble condition, and his love of story-telling ; but 
from his mother the nobility of character which 
made him great, and won the admiration of the 

world. 

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, 
in a floorless log-hut that was little better than a 
hovel, that stood near the banks of a creek in what 
is now La Rue County, Kentucky. His grand- 
father, also named Abraham Lincoln, was one of 
the pioneers of Kentucky, and had been killed 
by the Indians in 1784, while plowing in his field. 
The Indian who fired the shot seized the youngest 
boy, Thomas, six years old, the father of the future 
President, and started off, when suddenly he fell 

8 



10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

dead, shot by an older brother, Mordecai, a boy 
ten years okl. 

Thomas Lincoln grew to manhood in the wilds 
of Kentucky, and when twenty-eight years old mar- 
ried Nancy Hanks, daughter of Joseph Hanks, 
whose ancestors and those of her husband had been 
neighbors in the Shenandoah Valley half a century 
before. 

Nancy Lincoln is described as " tall, dark- 
haired, comely, dignified, and winsome, by her 
grace and kindness. She seemed at times as if 
looking far away, seeing what others did not see. 
She had attended school in Virginia, and stood 
upon a higher intellectual plane than those around 
her. The Bible was read morning and evening, 
and her conduct was in accordance with its precepts. 
She was on the frontier, where few books were to 
be had to satisfy her thirst for knowledge, and 
where there was little intellectual culture." 

To Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were born three 
children — a daughter and two sons. One boy died 
in childhood. The sister, named Sarah, lived to 
womanhood. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were 
very poor, and they began life together in very 
humble circumstances. Their first home was a 
cabin in Elizabethtown. In 1809, Thomas Lincoln 
secured a quarter-section of land on Nolin's Creek, 
near Hodgensville, on which he built a one- room 



LINCOLN'S CHILDHOOD. 11 

cabin. Their needs were few^ and with a Dutch 
oven, frying-pan, a few tin dishes, wooden plates, 
and a bucket, the family lived in comparative 
comfort. 

Nancy Lincoln Avas Avife, mother, and teacher. 
From his wife, Thomas Lincoln learned the letters 
of the al])habet, as did also her children. On Sun- 
days Nancy Lincoln would gather her children 
around her, and read to them the wonderful stories 
in the Bible, and pray with them. After he had 
become President, Lincoln, speaking of his mother, 
said : " I remember her prayers, and they have al- 
ways followed me. They have clung to me all my 
life." 

These Bible stories not only interested him, but 
they molded his character, and aroused a desire to 
be able to read for himself — a desire that, in later 
years, developed into an almost insatiable thirst for 
knowledge. 

In the week evenings, Thomas Lincoln would 
entertain his family with stories, many of which 
related to the adventures of Daniel Boone and 
other pioneers of Kentucky. The most interesting 
were those of the boy's grandfather, and the most 
thrilling of all, the account of the grandfather's 
death, and the escape of little Thomas himself. 

Traveling preachers occasionally visited the 
neighborhood, and a log meeting-house had been 



12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

erected at Little Mound, about thr<je miles from 
the Lincoln home. Here little Abe attended serv- 
ices with his parents, and, when only five years old, 
was so impressed with what he heard, that on his 
return home he would mount a stool, and preach a 
sermon of his own, shouting and pouuding the 
table with his little fist in imitation of the preacher. 
His favorite among these itinerants was Rev. David 
Elkin. 

Little Abe started to attend school when about 
five years old. It was '* kept " by a Roman Cath- 
olic priest, named Zachariah Riney, who traveled 
through the settlements, teaching for a few weeks 
at a time. The school did not amount to much ; 
but such as it was, the boys and girls, and even 
young men and young women of the country, for 
many miles around, attended it. The only text- 
book was a ** Speller," with easy reading-lessons. 
Thanks to the careful instruction of his intelli- 
gent mother, little five-year-old Abe was soon 
head of the class, to the great chagrin of the older 
scholars. 

In 1814, Thomas Lincoln, who had been unable 
to pay for his laud on Nolin's Creek, bargained for 
a two-hundred-acre tract of land on Knob Creek, 
a few miles away. Here his sou attended a school 
taught by George Hazel, whose only text-book was 
also a '' Speller." 



REMOVAL TO INDIANA- 

SLAVERY and imperfect land-titles together 
bad made the lot of the poor white man in 
Kentucky exceedingly unpleasant. When Thomas 
Lincoln and his wife learned that fertile govern- 
ment land could be bought in Indiana for $2 an 
acre, they caught the " emigrant fever," and in 
1817 decided to move to the free State where 
rich and poor were alike respected, and where the 
poorest could secure a home. 

Thomas Lincoln had cleared a portion of the 
Knob Creek farm, built a cabin, dug a well, and 
made other improvements, and in consideration of 
these he found a purchaser who would pay him his 
price for the place — three hundred dollars. The 
man had but little money, but Lincoln accepted the 
terms offered — twenty dollars in money and tea 
barrels of whisky worth $28 a barrel. Whisky in 
those days was salable everywhere, and was consid- 
ered as safe as money. But it w-as inconvenient to 
carry. This compelled Lincoln to construct a raft 
on which he placed his few carpenter tools and the 
whisky. 

13 



14 A BRAHAM LINCOLN. ■ 

The raft was built at the junction of Knob 
Creek and the Rolling Fork River. Leaving his 
family, Lincoln floated down the Rolling Fork to 
Salt River; thence into the Ohio. The latter was 
at flood height, and the current very swift. The 
raft was capsized, and the whisky and the other 
freight went to the bottom. Lincoln swam ashore. 
He was penniless. What should he do? He de- 
cided to wait until the waters should recede. This 
they did in a few days, when he recovered his prop- 
erty, secured another boat, and drifted down the 
Ohio to Thompson's Landing. He then traveled 
inland, until he reached Pigeon Creek, where he se- 
lected a quarter-section of land, went to Vincennes 
to enter it, and then returned to Kentucky. 

The family moved to Indiana in November. 
There was no house for them to occupy, not even 
a cabin. Their only shelter was a shed or three- 
faced " camp," one side of which was open to the 
weather. This shelter was the home of the family 
during the winter, while the father was hewing 
timber and preparing it for the more pretentious 
house he was to build. 

The family moved into the new home before the 
floor had been laid or the door hung. Soon after- 
ward, an epidemic, known as " milk-sickness," 
broke out. It was attributed to the poisoning of 
the milk by herbs which the cows ate, and attacked 



REMOVAL TO INDIANA. 15 

human beings and cattle alike. Physicians had no 
remedy, and many jieople died. Nancy Lincoln was 
stricken, and, after a brief illness, died, at the age 
of thirty-three years. 

Not long before her death, Mrs. Lincoln called 
little Abe to her bedside, and said to him : "I am 
going away from you, Abraham, and shall not re- 
turn. I know that you will be a good boy; that 
you will be kind to Sarah and to your father. I 
want you to live as I have taught you, and to love 
your Heavenly Father." The husband made a 
coffin, and kind neighbors buried her on the sum- 
rait of a hill within sight of her home. 

That there was no religious service held weighed 
on little Abe's heart. Some time after he wrote 
to Rev. David Elkin, the itinerant he had heard 
preach at Little Mound, Ky., and asked him to 
preach the funeral sermon at his mother's grave. 
The preacher replied that he would come. An 
appointment was made, and the settlers from many 
miles around gathered to hear the sermon at 
Nancy Lincoln's grave. The grave is now marked 
by a marble slab and iron fence, erected by P. E. 
Studebaker, of South Bend, Indiana. On the stone 
is the inscription : " Nancy Hanks Lincoln, mother 
of President Lincoln; died October 5, A. D., 1818, 
aged thirty-five years. Erected by a friend of her 
martyred son, 1879." 



LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 

THE death of Lis mother was the first great sor- 
row of Abraham Lincoln's life. It left its 
impression upon his character forever. It was soou 
after that he began to exhibit that sadness and 
sympathy which characterized him throughout his 
life. His tenderness was also manifest at this early 
age, and he seldom indulged even in the most pop- 
ular sport of the day — hunting — because it appeared 
to him to be cruel. Once he shot a wild turkey, 
but he fired through a crevice of the cabin so that 
he might not see the bird die. 

Not long after Mrs. Lincoln's death, Thomas 
Lincoln, while visiting a friend about twenty miles 
distant, observed an old, soiled copy of Bunyan's 
'^ Pilgrim's Progress." " What a treasure that would 
be to Abe !" he thought. He asked his friend to 
loan him the book, and he did so. When he placed 
the book in Abe's hands the boy was so delighted, 
his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, 
and that night he could not sleep. 

It did not take Abe a great while to read the 
book through. So soon as he had finished it he 
16 



LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 17 

began a second time. When he was about half 
through a lady frieud, who heard of his love for 
reading, presented him a copy of ^sop's Fables. 
Of this, his first book that he might call his own, he 
was no doubt more proud than of his election to the 
Presidency of the United States in later years. He 
read and re-read the fables until he knew them all 
by heart. He not only learned the story of each 
fable, but he caught the lesson it was designed to 
teach. 

It was from this book he learned the value of a 
story as a teacher, of which he made such remarka- 
ble use when, to make men understand him, he 
would say, " That reminds me of a story," and 
then relate some incident that would convey his 
meaning as a statement of mere words could not. 

A little more than a year after the death of his 
wife, Thomas Lincoln suddenly left home. A few 
weeks later he presented himself at the house of 
Sarah Bush Johnson, in Elizabethtowu, Kentucky. 
Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Lincoln had been playmates 
in childhood, but now she was a widow with three 
children. Mr. Lincoln asked her to marry him. 
She did not refuse, but said she owed some debts, 
and could not go away until they were paid. Mr. 
Lincoln inquired and found that the debts amounted 
to $12, which was a large sum to Mrs. Johnson. 
These he paid, and the next day they were married. 



18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Mrs. Sarah Lincoln's possessions consisted of a 
bureau, a couple of feather-beds, a few chairs, and 
a heart so large that it at once received as her 
own the motherless children of Nancy Hanks. Her 
arrival with her two girls and boy brought cheer 
to the desolate home. 

The new mother was a superior woman, and 
Lincoln loved her dearly. After he had become 
prominent as a lawyer, a friend who called at his 
office found him sitting before a table, on which 
was a small pile of money, which he was counting 
over and over. 

" Look here. Judge," said Lincoln . " See what 

a heap of money I 've got from the case. 

Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never 
had so much money in my life before, put it all to- 
gether!" Then crossing his arms upon the table, 
his manner sobering down, he added : " I Ve got 
just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven 
hundred and fifty, I would go directly and purchase 
a (juarter-section of land, and settle it upon my old 
stepmother." 

His friend said that if the deficiency was all he 
needed, he would loan him the amount, taking his 
note, to which Mr. Lincoln instantly acceded. 

His friend then said : " Lincoln, I would not do 
just what you have indicated. Your stepmother is 
getting old, and will not probably live many years. 



LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 19 

I would settle the property upou her for her use 
during her lifetime, to revert to you upon her death." 

AVith much feeling, Mr. Lincoln replied : " I 
shall do no such thing. It is a poor return, at" the 
hest, for all the good woman's devotion and fidelity 
to me, and there is not going to be any half-way 
business about it ;" and so saying, he gathered up 
his money, and proceeded forthwith to carry his 
long-cherished purpose into execution. 

In 1822 a log school-house was built on Pigeon 
Creek. The teacher was a young man named Azel 
Dorscy. He taught reading, writing, spelling, and 
arithmetic. There is a tradition that Abe's mother 
taught him to write, but he had not become pro- 
ficient. His stepmother, who had noticed his love 
of reading, gladly sent him to Dorsey's school, and 
assisted him as best she could at home. It soon 
became known that he was the best " speller " in 
the school, and his fame went abroad. He also be- 
came greatly interested in arithmetic, and, in the ab- 
sence of a slate, worked his problems on the back 
of a wooden shovel. His pencils were a piece of 
ciialk or the burnt end of a stick. For writing 
books he used the top of his mother's table, the 
stools in their cabin, the trunks of trees, and some- 
times the ground. Once he wrote "Abraham Lin- 
coln " on the ground in his father's cornfield, as 
children write their names in the sand on the sea- 



20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

shore. He loved his books, but even they were not 
too precious to be defaced. In his arithmetic were 
found these lines : 

" Abraham Lincoln, 
His hand and pen ; 
He will be good — 
But God knows when." 

Dorsey's school continued only a few weeks, and 
there was no other for two years. In the meantime 
Abe was reading everything that he could find. 
The books he read were " Pilgrim's Progress," 
Weems's " Life of Washington," and "Robinson 
Crusoe." The " Life of Washington " he borrowed 
from Josiah Crawford. One day, during a rain- 
storm, some of the leaves got wet. It is not prob- 
able that Crawford really attached much value to 
the book, but he charged Abe seventy-five cents 
for the damage done. The boy had no money, and 
paid the bill by pulling corn in Crawford's field for 
three days. This, the first book he bought, was 
most highly prized. 

Perhaps the most helpful school-teacher he had 
was Andrew Crawford, who followed Dorsey. Craw- 
ford trained the scholars, not only in reading, writ- 
ing, and arithmetic, but in " manners" and elocution. 
He greatly enjoyed "speaking pieces," and after 
school would often mount a stump, and repeat some 
piece from the " American Preceptor," or make an 



LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 21 

impromptu speech. His audience usually consisted 
of his own sister Sarah, his stepsisters Sarah and 
Matilda Johnson, his stepbrother John Johnson, 
and his cousin Dennis Hanks, who lived with the 
Lincoln family. A more appreciative audience no 
speaker ever had. 

The aggregate of Lincoln's schooling did not 
amount to one year. His eagerness to learn led 
him not only to read books, but to attend meetings 
of all kinds where he might hear men speak. 
Among the books that had fallen into his hands was 
a copy of the Revised Statutes of Indiana. This 
was the beginning of his study of law. 

Once he walked fifteen miles to Booneville, to 
listen to the plea of the famous Kentuckiau, John 
Breckinridge, who defended a man accused of mur- 
der. He was delighted with the speech, which was the 
greatest he had ever heard. In his enthusiasm, so 
soon as the plea was concluded, he pushed his way 
to the front, to congratulate the orator. Mr. Breck- 
inridge paid no attention whatever to the out- 
stretched hand of the coatless young man, who was 
expressing his thanks and commending the ability 
and eloquence of the stranger, who had not only 
pleased but instructed him. The presumption of 
the boy was treated with silence, save a contemp- 
tuous glance at one of those who, to him, were 
" poor white trash." 



22 AS RAMA M LINCOLN. 

He and Breckinridge met again in 1862, at the 
White House, in Washington. The coatless boy- 
had become President of the United States. He 
reminded Mr. Breckinridge of their first meeting, 
and again complimented him on his great effort. 
This time the lawyer was pleased. 

Lincoln related to Secretary Seward and a few 
friends in the White House, one evening, the fol- 
lowing incident in his life : 

" Seward," the President said, " you never heard, 
did you, how I earned my first dollar?" 

" No," rejoined Mr. Seward. 

" Well," continued Lincoln, " I belonged, you 
know, to what they call down South, the ^scrubs.' 
We had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, 
sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in 
taking it down the river to sell. 

" After much persuasion, I got the consent of 
mother to construct a little flatboat, large enough 
to take a barrel or two of things that we had gath- 
ered, with myself and little bundle, down to the 
Southern market. A steamer was coming down 
the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the 
Western streams ; and the custom was, if passen- 
gers were at any of the landings, for them to go 
out to the passing steamer in a boat. 

"I was contemplating my new flatboat, and 
wondering whether I could make it stronger, or 



LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 23 

improve it iu any particular, when two men came 
down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and, 
looking at the different boats, singled out mine. 
"* Who owns this?' one asked: 
" I answered, somewhat modestly, * I do/ 
" ' Will you,' said one of them, ' take us and our 
trunks out to the steamer?' 

" * Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have 
the chance of earning something. I supposed that 
each of them would give me two or three bits. The 
trunks were put on my flatboat, the passengers 
seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled 
them out to the steamboat. 

" They got on board, and I lifted up their 
heavy trunks, and put them on deck. The steamer 
was about to put on steam again, when I called out 
that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them 
took from his pocket a silver half-dollar, and threw 
it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely be- 
lieve my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentle- 
men, you may think it was a very little thing, and 
in these days it seems to me a trifle ; but it was a 
most important incident in ray life. I could scarcely 
credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less 
than a day — that by honest work I had earned a 
dollar. The world seemed wider and fairer before 
me. I was a more hopeful and confident being 
from that time." 



A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS. ^ 

AFTER a few years Thomas Lincoln grew tired 
of Indiana, and Illinois having been portrayed 
to him as a veritable paradise, he pulled up stakes 
and migrated thither in February, 1830, settling 
near Decatur. Young Abraham accompanied his 
father. On the way they crossed a shallow stream 
that was covered with thin ice. After the family 
had reached the shore, Abraham heard the cries 
of their little dog, which was standing on the op- 
opposite bank, and was afraid to step into the icy 
water. " I can not bear to see even a puppy in 
distress," he said, so he rolled up his trousers, and 
barefoot waded the stream, took the dog in his 
arms, and carried it safely across. 

Abraham assisted his father in building his cabin, 
clearing ground, and planting a crop. It was dur- 
ing this time that Lincoln and John Hanks split 
the rails which were introduced with such tremen- 
dous effect at the Republican State Convention, held 
in Decatur, 111., in 1860, which nominated delegates 
to the ensuing National Convention. Lincoln had 
scarcely taken his seat in the Convention, when 
24 



A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS. 25 

General Oglesby announced that an old Democrat 
of Macon County desired to make a contribution to 
the Convention. At once several farmers entered 
the hall carrying on their shoulders two old fence- 
rails, bearing the inscription : " Abraham Lincoln, 
the rail candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two 
rails from a lot of three thousand, made in 1830 by 
Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose father was 
the first pioneer of Macon County." The effect 
was thrilling. The cheering continued for fifteen 
minutes, and the demonstration showed the Con- 
vention and the country that Abraham Lincoln 
was the only choice of the Republicans of Illinois 
for the Presidency. 

When Lincoln became of age, he thought it 
time to do something for himself. Among his first 
contracts was one to split rails for a woman who, 
in payment, Avas to furnish cloth and make him a 
])air of trousers. The terms were three hundred 
rails for every yard of cloth used, and the bargain 
was faithfully carried out. 

Not long afterward a man named Offutt engaged 
Lincoln to take a flatboat loaded with country 
produce, and sell it. A herd of pigs constituted 
part of the cargo, and as they refused to be driven, 
Abraham took them, one by one, in his strong arms, 
and carried them aboard. While in New Orleans 
he, for tlie first time, entered a slave-market, where 



26 ABB AH AM LINCOLN. 

he saw men, women, and children sold like cattle. 
The anguish of fathers and mothers and children, as 
they were torn from each other, fired him with in- 
dignation, and he said to one of his companions : 
" If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I 
Avill hit it hard, John." 

After Lincoln's return Mr. Offutt offered him a 
position as clerk in his store at New Salem, Illinois. 
Mr. Qffutt was very proud of his clerk, and praised 
him so often that a gang of young roughs in the 
neighborhood, known as the " Clary Grove boys," 
determined to give him a thrashing. They finally 
provoked Lincoln to engage in a wrestling match 
with their leader. Jack Armstrong. Armstrong 
was as strong as an ox, and was the champion 
wrestler. To his great surprise Lincoln, seizing him 
with both hands, held him at arms' length, and 
shook him like a child. His friends rushed to his 
assistance, but Armstrong shouted to them to stop, 
saying : " Boys, Abe Lincoln is the best man that 
ever broke into this settlement. He shall be 
one of us." 

One of Lincoln's greatest triumphs at the bar was 
in defending William Armstrong, the son of this 
Jack Armstrong. Young Armstrong had been in- 
dicted, with another young man named Norris, for 
a murder committed near a camp-meeting. The 
crime had created great excitement and indigna- 



A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS. 27 

tion. Norris had been couvicted and sentenced to 
State-prison. Young Armstrong had few friends, 
and no money to emph)y attorneys. His mother 
had often befriended Lincoln in his younger days, 
and cheered him in his melancholy moods. She 
thought he might now befriend her boy in his need. 
She believed that he could save Bill from disgrace 
and death if any one could. So she went to him 
and told him the story. He promised to do what 
he could. At the trial the evidence against the boy 
was very strong. The strongest point made Avas by 
a witness who swore that at eleven o'clock at night 
he saw Armstrong strike the murdered man on the 
head. He declared the full moon was shining 
brightly, and that he could not have been mistaken. 

Lincoln quietly picked up an almanac, and ex- 
amining it found there was no moon at all on that 
night. This was Lincoln's only point for defense, 
but upon this testimony rested the strength of the 
case against his client. He told no one of his dis- 
covery; but when he came to argue the case, he 
gradually prepared the minds of the jury for the 
climax of his speech, when he called for the al- 
manac, and showed that the principal witness had 
testified to what was absolutely false, and declared 
his whole story a fabrication. What followed is 
thus described in Barrett's " Life of Lincoln :" 

"An almost instantaneous change seemed to 



28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

have been wrought in the minds of his auditors, 
and the verdict of ' not guilty' was at the end of 
every tongue. But the advocate was not content 
with this intellectual achievement. .His whole be- 
ing had for months been bound up in this work of 
gratitude and mercy, and, as the lava of the over- 
charged crater bursts from its imjjrisonment, so 
great thoughts and burning words leaped forth from 
the soul of the eloquent Lincoln. He drew a pic- 
ture of the perjurer so horrid and ghastly that the 
accuser could sit under it no longer, but reeled 
and staggered from the court-room, while the au- 
dience fancied they could see the brand upon his 
l)ro\v. Then, in words of thrilling pathos, Lincoln 
appealed to the jurors, as fathers of sons who might 
become fatherless, and as husbands of wives who 
might be widowed, to yield to no previous impres- 
sions, no ill-founded prejudice, but to do his client 
justice; and as he alluded to the debt of gratitude 
which he owed the boy's sire, tears were seen to fall 
from many eyes unused to weep. It was near 
night when he concluded by saying, that if justice 
was done — as he believed it would be — before the 
sun should set it would shine upon his client, a 
free man. 

"The jury retired, and the court adjourned for 
the day. Half an hour had not elapsed, when, as 
the officers of the court and the volunteer attorney 



A STOREKEEPER 7iV ILLINOIS. 29 

sat at the tea-table of their hotel, a messenger an- 
nounced that the jury had returned to their seats. 
All repaired immediately to the court-house, and 
while the prisoner was being brought from the 
jail, the court-room was filled to overflowing with 
citizens of the town. When the prisoner and his 
mother entered, silence reigned as completely as 
though the house were empty. The foreman of the 
jury, in answer to the usual inquiry from the court, 
delivered the verdict of 'Not Guilty!' 

"The widow dropped into the arms of her son, 
who lifted her up, aud told her to look upon him as 
before, free and innocent. Then, Mith the words, 
' Where is Mr. Lincoln ?' he rushed across the 
room and grasped the hand of his deliverer, while 
his heart was too full for utterance. Lincoln 
turned his eyes toward the west, where the sun still 
lingered in view, and then, turning to the youth, 
said : ' It is not yet sundown, and you are free.' I 
confess that my cheeks were not wholly unwet by 
tears, and I turned from the affecting scene. As I 
cast a glance behind, I saw Abraham Lincoln obey- 
ing the divine injunction by comforting the wid- 
owed and the fatherless." 

It was while employed in Offutt's store, in New 
Salem, 111., that Lincoln began to be called "Honest 
Abe." He was judge, arbitrator, referee, umpire, 
authority in all disputes, games, and matches of 



30 A BRA HA M LINCOLN. 

man-flesh and horse-flesh ; a peacemaker in all quar- 
rels ; everybody's friend ; the best-natured, the most 
sensible, the best-informed, the most modest and un- 
assuming, the kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, 
best young fellow in all the region round about. 

Lincoln could not rest for an instant under the 
consciousness that he had, even unwittingly, de- 
frauded anybody. On one occasion he sold a 
woman a little bill of goods, amounting to two dol- 
lars six and a quarter cents. He received the 
money, and the woman went away. On adding the 
items of the bill again, to make himself sure of cor- 
rectness, he found that he had taken six and a quar- 
ter cents too much. It was night, but he closed 
and locked the store, and started on foot for the 
house of his defrauded customer, two miles away, 
and delivered to her the sum due her. Then he 
returned home satisfied. 

In 1832, Lincoln and a man named Berry 
bought a store in New Salem. Berry had little 
means, and Lincoln gave his personal note for the 
amount involved. They failed in a short time, and 
Mr. Lincoln carried the burden of the debt for six- 
teen years, when he paid the last cent out of his con- 
gressional salary. He referred to this experience 
in his life as " paying the national debt." 



THE BLACK HAWK \v^AR. 

^pHE Black Hawk War broke out iu 1832, and 
-i- Lincoln eulisted in a company being formed in 
New Salem. He was elected captain, and after his 
elevation to the Presidency referred to this action of 
his neighbors and friends as one of the proudest 
moments of his life. He was mustered into service 
by Lieutenant Eobert Anderson, afterward com- 
mander of Fort Sumter when it fell. 

His company did not have an opportunity to 
distinguish itself, but the experience enabled Mr. 
Lincoln to enliven one of his speeches while in 
Congress by the following allusion to it : 

" By the way, Mr. Speaker," said Lincoln, 
" do you know I am a military hero ? Yes, sir; in 
the days of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, 
and came away. Speaking of General Cass's career 
reminds me of my own. I was not at Stillman's 
defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull's 
surrender ; and, like him, I saw the place very soon 
afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my 
sword, for I had none to break ; but I bent my 
musket pretty badly on one occasion. ... If 

31 



32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

General Cass Avent in advance of nie in picking 
whortleberries, I guess T surpassed him in charges 
upon the wild onions. If he saw any live, fighting 
Indians, it Avas more than I did, but I had a good 
many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes; and al- 
though I never fainted from loss of blood, I can 
truly say I M'as often very hungry." Lincoln con- 
cluded by saying that if he ever turned Demo- 
crat, and should run for the Presidency, he hoped 
they would not make fun of him by attempting to 
make him a military hero ! 

The war did, however, give an opportunity for 
Lincoln to exhibit his moral courage. One day 
there came into the camp an old Indian. He was 
weary and hungry, and had a safe conduct from 
General Cass, but the men were so incensed against 
the entire race, that they denounced him as a spy. 
They were about to kill him, when Lincoln stepped 
between them and their intended victim. He was 
terribly angry, and his manner cowed them. After 
a moment one shouted : 

" Lincoln, this is cowardly of you." 
Looking at him with contempt, Lincoln replied : 
" If any man thinks I am a coward, let him test 
me." 

" You are bigger and braver than any of us." 
" That you can guard against ; choose your own 
weapons." 



IN PUBLIC LIFE. 

SOON after his return from the Black Hawk War 
in 1832, Lincohi announced himself as a Whig 
candidate for the Legislature in a speech delivered 
at Pappsville, Sangamon County, Illinois. It was 
his maiden effort, and was as follows : 

" Gentlemen, Fellow-citizens, — I presume 
you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham 
Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to 
become a candidate for the Legislature. My poli- 
tics are short and sweet, like an ' old woman's 
dance.' I am in favor of a national bank. I am 
in favor of the international improvement system 
and a high protective tariff". These are my senti- 
ments and political principles. If elected, I will 
be thankful. If defeated, it will be all the same." 

He was defeated, but not dismayed. He studied 
what he should do — thought of learning the black- 
smith's trade — but the opportunity offering to buy 
the store with Berry, he did so. After his failure, 
while clerking in a Mr. Ellis's store, he bought 
an old volume of Blackstone at a store in Spring- 
field, and gave himself up to studying law. Other 

books were loaned him by a friend, to secure which 

3 33 



34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

he walked to Springfield, fourteen miles distant. 
So absorbed would he become in reading his books 
on the way home, that he would be oblivious of 
everything around him. A favorite resort for study 
was an old oak-tree, around which he moved to 
keep in the shade. Often he would be found lying 
flat on his back on the counter, absorbed in his 
studies. A book was almost always his inseparable 
companion. One day a friend called at his board- 
ing-house, and found him stretched at full length 
upon the bed, poring over a book, and rocking the 
cradle of his landlady's baby with one foot. 

In 1833 he was appointed postmaster of New 
Salem. The remuneration was not large, and the 
office was discontinued during Lincoln's term. 
Some time later, and after Lincoln had begun 
the practice of law, an agent of the Post-office De- 
partment entered his office, and inquired if Abraham 
Lincoln was in. Lincoln was told that the agent 
had called to collect a balance due the Department 
from the New Salem office. A shade of perplexity 
passed over Lincoln's face, which did not escape 
the notice of friends who were present. One of 
them said at once : " Lincoln, if you are in want of 
money, let us help you." He made no reply, but 
suddenly rose, and pulled out from a pile of books 
a little old trunk, and, returning to the table, 
asked the agent how much the amount of hia debt 



IN P UBLIG LIFE. 35 

■was. The sura was named, and then Lincoln opened 
the trunk, pulled out a little package of coin 
wrapped iu a cotton rag, and counted out the exact 
sum, aniountiug to souiethiug more than seventeen 
dollars. 

After the agent had left the room, Lincoln re- 
marked quietly that he never used any man's money 
but his own. Although this sura had been in his 
hands for several years — during which he was in 
great financial straits — he had never regarded it 
as available, even for any temporary purpose of 
his own. 

After retiring from the post-office, Lincoln re- 
sumed rail-splitting for a living. He was thus 
working for a man named Short, when a neighbor 
came along and told hira he had been appointed 
a government surveyor. 

In 1834, Lincoln was again a candidate for the 
Legislature. He made a thorough canvass, delighted 
his audiences with his funny stories, and was tri- 
umphantly elected. On one occasion, while speak- 
ing to a number of men cradling wheat in a field, 
one of them said : 

" 1 won't vote for any man we can cut out of his 
swath." 

" Well, boys," replied Lincoln, " I guess you 
will all vote for me then ;" and seizing a cradle, he 
led them around the field. 



36 ABBASAM LINCOLN. 

Lincoln's finances were low, but his credit was 
so good that he borrowed two hundred dollars with 
which to buy clothes and pay his expenses during 
the session of the Legislature. To save the ex- 
pense, he walked to Vandalia, the capital, a dis- 
tance of about one hundred miles, carrying his 
clothes in a pack on his back. One of the first 
persons he met at Springfield, though not as a 
member of the Legislature, was Stephen A. Doug- 
las, with whose name his own was afterward to be 
intimately associated. 

In a speech in 1856, Mr. Lincoln made the follow- 
ing generous allusion to Douglas. He said : ''Twenty 
years ago Judge Douglas and " I first became ac- 
quainted. We w^ere both young then, he a trifle 
younger than I. Even then we were both ambi- 
tious — I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With me 
the race of ambition has been a failure. With him 
it has been a splendid success. His name fills the 
nation, and it is not unknown in foreign lands. I 
affect no contempt for the high eminence he has 
reached ; so reached that the oppressed of my species 
might have shared with me in the elevation, I would 
rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest 
crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." 

Mr. Lincoln was a candidate for re-election. 
There was considerable interest, and the voters of 
Sangamon County called upon each candidate to 



IN PUBLIC LIFE. 37 

"show his hand." In response Mr. Lincoln issued 
the following address : 

" Fellow-citizens, — The candidates are called 
upon, I see, to show their hands. Here is mine. I 
go for all sharing the privileges of government who 
assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go 
for admitting all the whites to the rights of suffrage 
who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding 
the females. 

" If elected, I shall consider the whole people of 
Sangamon County my constituents, as well those 
who oppose as those who support me. "While act- 
ing as their representative, I shall be governed by 
their will on all subjects upon which I have the 
means of knowing what their will is ; and upon all 
others, I shall do what my judgment tells me will 
best advance their interests. 

"Whether elected or not, I go for distributing 
the proceeds of the sales of the public lands to the 
several States, to enable our State, in common with 
others, to dig canals and construct railroads without 
borrowing money aud paying the interest on it. 
If alive on the first day of November, I shall vote 
for Hugh L. White for President." 

His opponent was George Forquar, of Springfield, 
Illinois, who was celebrated for having "changed his 
coat" politically, and as having introduced the first 
and only lightning-rod in Springfield at this time. 



38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

He said in a speech, in Lincoln's presence: "This 
young man [Lincoln] will have to be taken down, 
and I am sorry the task devolves upon me ;" and 
then proceeded to " take him down." 

Lincoln replied, and in closing said: "Fellow- 
citizens, it is for you, not for me, to say whether I 
am up or down. The gentleman has alluded to my 
being a young man ; I am older in years than I am 
in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to 
live, and I desire place and distinction as a poli- 
tician ; but I would rather die now than, like the 
gentleman, live to see the day that I would have to 
erect a lightning-rod to protect a guilty conscience 
from an offended God." 

This response was greeted with laughter and 
cheers, and, lifting him upon their shoulders, Lin- 
coln's friends carried him from the court-house. 
Forquar made no reply. 

In this Legislature, Lincoln took a somewhat 
active part. His most notable action was the pre- 
sentation of the following protest, dated March 3, 
1837: 

" Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slav- 
ery having passed both branches of the General 
Assembly, at its present session, the undersigned 
hereby protest against the passage of the same. 

"They believe that the institution of slavery is 
founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that 



IN PUBLIC LIFE. 



39 



the promulgation of Abolition doctrines tends rather 
to increase than abate its evils. 

" They believe that the Congress of the United 
States has no power, under the Constitution, to in- 
terfere with the institution of slavery in the differ- 
ent States. 

" They believe that the Congress of the United 
States has the power, under the Constitution, to 
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but 
that the power ought not to be exercised, unless at 
the request of the people of said District. 

" The difference between these opinions and those 
contained in the said resolutions, is their reason for 
entering this protest. 

"(Signed,) Dan Stone, 

"A. Lincoln, 

"Representatives from the County of Sangamon." 
A good illustration of the execution which Lin- 
coln sometimes effected with a story occurred dur- 
ing his career in the I^egislature. There was a 
troublesome member from Wabash County, who 
gloried particularly in being a " strict construction- 
ist." He found something " unconstitutional" in 
every measure that was brought forward for discus- 
sion. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee, 
and was very apt, after giving every measure a heavy 
pounding, to advocate its reference to this commit- 
tee. No amount of sober argument could floor him. 



40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

At last the members determined to silence him, and 
Lincoln was asked to undertake the task. 

A measure was brought forward in which Lin- 
coln's constituents were interested, when the mem- 
ber from Wabash rose, and discharged all his bat- 
teries upon its unconstitutional points. Lincoln 
then took the floor, and, with a quizzical expression 
of features, and a mirthful twinkle in his gray 
eyes, said : 

"Mr. Speaker, the attack of the member from 
Wabash on the constitutionality of this measure 
reminds me of an old friend of mine. He 's a pe- 
culiar-looking old fellow, with shaggy, overhanging 
eyebrows, and a pair of spectacles under them. 
[Everybody turned to the member from Wabash, and 
recognized a personal description.] One morning, 
just after the old man got up, he imagined, on look- 
ing out of his door, that he saw rather a lively 
squirrel on a tree near his house. So he took down 
his rifle and fired at the squirrel, but the squirrel 
paid no attention to the shot. He loaded and fired 
again and again, until, at the thirteenth shot, he 
set down his gun impatiently, and said to his boy, 
who was looking on : 

" ' Boy, there 's something wrong about this 
rifle.' 

" ' Rifle 's all right ; I know ' tis,' responded the 
boy ; ' but where 's your squirrel ?' 



IN PUBLIC LIFE. 41 

"'Don't you see him, humped up about half- 
way up the tree?' inquired the old man, peering 
over his spectacles, and getting mystified. 

" ' No, I do n't,' responded the boy ; and then 
turning and looking into his father's face, he ex- 
claimed : ' I see your squirrel ! You 've been firing 
at a louse on your eyebrow !' " 

The story needed neither application nor expla- 
nation. The house was in convulsions of laughter. 
The member from AVabash was very careful after- 
wards not to provoke any allusion to his " eye- 
brows." 

Lincoln was a member of the Legislatures elected 
in 1838 and 1840. He had become the recognized 
Whig leader, and in the latter Legislature was the 
candidate of his party for speaker. 

During the campaign of 1840, Col. Dick Taylor, 
a Democrat, in a political speech, characterized the 
Whigs as pretentious " lords " and aristocrats. Lin- 
coln, in replying, said : "' I was a poor boy, hired 
on a flatboat at eight dollars a month, and had only 
one pair of breeches, and they were buckskin — and 
if you know the nature of buckskin when wet, and 
dried by the sun, they shrink — and mine kept 
shrinking until they left several inches of my legs 
bare between the tops of my socks and the lower 
part of my breeches; and whilst I was growing 
taller, they were becoming shorter, and so much 



42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tighter, that they left a blue streak around my legs 
that can be seen to this day. If you call this aris- 
tocracy, I plead guilty to the charge." 

While a member of the Legislature, February 
22, 1842, Lincoln delivered an address on temper- 
ance before the Washingtonian Temperance Society 
of Springfield, 111., in which he said : " When the 
victory shall be complete, when there shall be 
neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth, how 
proud the title of that land which may claim to be 
the birthplace and cradle of those resolutions that 
shall have ended in that victory !" 

Lincoln never used either liquor or tobacco in 
any form. He is said to have often preached the 
following "sermon," as he called it, to his boys: 

"Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, don't 
swear, do n't gamble, do n't lie, do n't cheat. Love 
your fellow-men and love God. Love truth, love 
virtue, and be happy." 

In 1846, Lincoln became the candidate for Con- 
gress from the Sangamon District. This included 
the city of Springfield, to which he had removed in 
1837. His Democratic opponent was Rev. Peter 
Cartwright, the famous Methodist backwoods 
preacher. The campaign was exciting, both being 
popular speakers. Lincoln was elected by a major- 
ity of 1,511 votes — the largest ever received in 
that district. 



IJV PUBLIC LIFE. 43 

The slavery question was uppermost in his 
thoughts for many years, and he realized that the 
struggle between slavery and abolition was to be to 
the death. Where he himself stood, even before 
Douglas startled the country with his Kansas-Ne- 
braska Bill, or the Whig party had committed sui- 
cide by accepting a compromise measure as a final- 
ity, is indicated by his remark to his law partner, 
Mr. Stuart, in 1850: "The time will come when 
we must all be Democrats or Abolitionists. When 
that time comes, my mind is made up. The slavery 
question can't be compromised." The Whig political 
leaders thought it could be, and drafted the " Com- 
promise Measures of 1850." These prepared the 
pro-slavery leaders, and it was supposed the minds of 
the people also, for Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Bill ; 
but the irruption which followed the announcement 
of the latter measure indicated that the politicians 
had failed to read the public mind upon a moral 
question, as they had before been able to do on 
purely political questions. Surprised at the effect 
of his bill. Senator Stephen A. Douglas started 
for Springfield, 111., to explain. This he did in 
October, before avast number of people during the 
State Fair, delivering one of the greatest speeches of 
his life. There was but one man who was able to 
answer him, and that was Lincoln. He that day 
made his first great political speech. Stoddard 



44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

says : " All the smothered fire of his brooding days 
and nights and years burst forth in a power and 
with an eloquence which even those who knew him 
best had not so much as hoped for. Tliere was no 
report made of that speech. Not a sentence of it 
had been reduced to writing beforehand. He spoke 
all that was in his heart to speak, and when he sat 
down there had been a new party born in the State 
of Illinois, and he was its father, its head, its un- 
questioned and unquestionable representative and 
leader. . . . It is a matter of historical record 
that the existence of the Republican party, unnamed 
but living, dates from the first collision at Spring- 
field of Stephen A. Douglas with the man who, for 
forty-seven years of toilsome development, had un- 
wittingly prepared himself for that hour, and for 
the long struggle which was to follow." So strong an 
Abolition speech was this reply to Douglas, that the 
Abolitionists announced a separate meeting of their 
own for the same evening, and planned to have 
Lincoln identify himself with them by a speech. 
What would have been the result had not his part- 
ner, Mr. Herudou, an ardent Abolitionist, urged 
him to go into the country, it is impossible to say. 



LINCOLN'S "KEYNOTE" SPEECH. 

THE Illiuo's Republican State Convention met 
at Springfield, June 16, 1858. The delegates 
and alternates numbered about one thousand. Men 
were present from every Northern State and from 
several Southern States. The eyes of the Nation 
were turned in the direction of this little city. 

It was understood by all that Lincoln would be 
the orator of the occasion, and that his speech before 
the Convention would be a great political event. 
H^i realized this fact, and prepared his speech so 
that there could be no misunderstanding of his 
views upon the great issue then before the country — 
slavery. 

On the 16th of June the Convention unanimously 
adopted the following resolution : 

"That Abraham Lincoln is our first and only 
choice for United States senator, to fill the vacancy 
about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Doug- 
las's term of office." 

While Lincoln had taken neither advice nor 

counsel in the preparation of his speech, he deemed 

it wise to prepare some of his nearer friends for 

45 



46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

what it was to be. He read it first to Mr. Herndon, 
an Abolitionist, and that gentleman said : 

" It is true ; but is it entirely politic to speak it 
or read it as it is written ?" 

The question referred particularly to the " key- 
note " of the speech, which was as follows : 

"Gentlemen of the Convention, — If we 
could first know where we are and whither we are 
tending, we could then better judge what to do and 
how to do it. We are now far on into the fifth 
year since a policy was initiated with the avowed 
object and confident promise of putting an end to 
slavery agitation. Under the operation of that 
policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but 
has continually augmented. In my opinion it will 
not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. *A house divided against itself can not 
stand.' I believe this Government can not endure, 
permanently, half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect 
the house to fall ; but I do expect that it will cease 
to be divided. It will become all one thing or al? 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will ar- 
rest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course 
of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it 
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, old as well as new. North as well as South." 



LINCOLN'S "KEYNOTE'' SPEECH. 47 

To Herndou's objection Liucolu replied : 

"That makes no difference. That expression is 
a truth of all human experience. 'A house divided 
against itself can not stand/ and * He that runs may 
read.' The proposition is indisputably true, and 
has been true for more than six thousand years; 
and I will deliver it as it is \vritten. I want to 
use some universally known figure, expressed in 
simple language as universally known, that may 
strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse 
them to the peril of the times. I would rather be 
defeated with this expression in the speech, and it 
held up and discussed before the people, than to be 
victorious without it." 

Lincoln afterward gathered a dozen leading men 
in the library-room of the State-house, not to ask 
their guidance, but to assure them of his purpose 
by reading his speech to them. They listened, and 
every man present except Mr. Herndon, who had 
caught Lincoln's spirit, condemned the bold utter- 
ance, and declared that its delivery would sound the 
death-knell of Lincoln and the Republican party. 

Liucolu heard them all respectfidly, and then said 
to them : 

" Friends, I have thought about this matter a 
great deal ; have surveyed the question well from all 
corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has 
come when it should be uttered; and if it must be 



48 A BRA HA M LINCOLN: 

that I go down because of this speech, then let me 
go down linked to truth — die in the advocacy of 
what is right and just. This Nation can not live on 
injustice. 'A house divided against itself can not 
stand/ I say again and again." 

The speech was delivered without modification 
the next day, June 17th, and it startled the Nation. 
No such daring words, no such unequivocal state- 
ment of the great problem, had yet been uttered 
by any man of political prominence and power. 

Mr. Lamon relates that, a day or two after the 
delivery of the speech, a Dr. Long, representing 
many others, came into Lincoln's law office to free 
his mind. He said : 

"Well, Lincoln, that foolish speech of yours will 
kill vou — will defeat you in this contest, and prob- 
ably for all offices for all time to come. I am sorry, 
sorry, very sorry. I wish it was wiped out of ex- 
istence. Don't you wish it now?" 

Lincoln dropped the pen he had been writing 
with, and turned his sad, earnest, half-contemptuous 
smile upon the mourner : 

" Well, Doctor, if I had to draw my pen across 
and erase my whole life from existence, and I had 
one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save 
from the wreck, I should choose that speech, and 
leave it to the world unerased." 



THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 

THE discussions between Lincoln and Douglas 
in 1858 were the most famous political joint 
debates iu American history. These men were 
rival candidates for the position of United States 
senator from Illinois. They represented the con- 
servative positions on the slavery question, though 
at the time each was thought to be extremely rad- 
ical — Lincoln being opposed to the extension of 
slavery under any conditions, and Douglas being 
in favor of leaving the people of a Territory to de- 
cide it for themselves. The immediate issue involved 
related to the extension of slavery into Kansas. 

Douglas was the champion of what he termed 
"squatter sovereignty;" that is, that the settlers of 
a Territory at the time of its proposed admission to 
the Union of States should, in the provisional con- 
stitution, determine whether slavery should be per- 
mitted in the new State or not. 

The position of Douglas had arrayed against him 
many anti-slavery Democrats in the Nortii, and 
pro-slavery Democrats in the South, besides Presi- 
dent Buchanan, whom Douglas had antagonized. 

4 49 



50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The campaign therefore, for these reasons, at- 
tracted national attention, and was regarded, so far 
as Douglas was concerned, the beginning of the 
Presidential campaign of 1860, it being generally 
understood that he hoped and expected to be the 
Democratic candidate for the Presidency. 

Both men were trained speakers, and popular. 
Douglas's friends loved to call him " the Little 
Giant," and the friends of Lincoln, who was phys- 
ically and intellectually a giant, loved to call him 
" Honest Old Abe." Lincoln believed that he and 
his cause had more to gain than lose by compari- 
son with Douglas before the people, and he forced 
the issue by proposing the joint debate. DougJas 
accepted, and seven joint debates were arranged. 

These debates were held in the open air. The 
crowds attending them were so great that no hall 
in the State of Illinois could have accommodated 
them. Farmers with their sons rode twenty, thirty, 
forty, and even fifty miles, carrying provisions with 
them, and camping out in their wagons on the way. 

Isaac N. Arnold in his "Life of Lincoln," says: 

" The friends of Douglas who managed the ma- 
chinery of the campaign, did it well. A special 
train of cars, a band of music, a cannon to thunder 
forth his approach, and a party of ardent and en- 
thusiastic friends accompanied him to cheer and 
encourage; so that his passage from place to place 



THE LlXCOiy AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 51 

was like that of a conquering hero. The Demo- 
cratic party, so long dominant in Illinois, were 
now, from Douglas down, confident, and his par- 
tisans full of bluster and brag. They everywhere 
boasted, and were ready to bet, that their ' Little 
Giant' would 'use up and utterly demolish' 'Old 
Abe.' 

"They were so noisy and demonstrative; they 
seemed so absolutely sure of success, that many of 
the Republicans, unconscious of the latent power 
of Lincoln, became alarmed. Douglas had so uni- 
formly triumphed, and his power over the people 
was so great, that many were disheartened, and 
feared the ordeal of a joint discussion, which would 
certainly expose the weaker man. This feeling 
was apparent in the editorials of some of the lead- 
ing Republican newspapers. 

" Just before the joint discussion, which was to 
take place at Ottawa, there was a large gathering 
at the Chenery House, then the leading hotel at 
Springfield. The house was filled with politicians, 
and so great was the crowd that large numbers were 
out of doors, in the street and on the sidewalk. 
Lincoln was there, surrounded by his friends; but 
it is said that he looked careworn and weary. 

"He had become conscious that some of his party 
friends distrusted his ability to meet successfully a 
man who, as the Democrats declared and believed, 



52 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 

had never had his equal on the stump. Seeing an 
old friend from Vermilion County, Lincoln came 
up, and, shaking hands, inquired the news. His 
friend replied : 'All looks well; our friends are w'ide 
awake; but,' he continued, 'they are looking forward 
with some anxiety to these approaching joint dis- 
cussions wnth Douglas.' A shade passed over Lin- 
coln's face, a sad expression came and instantly 
passed, and then a blaze of light flashed from his 
eyes, and his lips quivered. * I saw,' said his friend, 
' that he had penetrated my feelings and fears, and 
that he knew of the apprehensions of his friends. 
With his lips compressed, and with a manner pecul- 
iar to him, half jocular, he said : " My friend, sit 
down a minute, and I will tell you a story." We 
sat down on the doorstep leading into the hotel, 
and he then continued : " You and I, as we traveled 
the circuit together attending court, have often seen 
two men about to fight. One of them, the big or 
the little giant, as the case may be, is noisy and 
boastful; he jumps high in the air, strikes his feet 
together, smites his fists, brags about what he is 
going to do, and tries hard to skecr the other man. 
The other says not a word." Lincoln's manner be- 
came earnest, and his look firm and resolute. "The 
other man says not a word, his arms are at his side, 
his fists are clenched, his teeth set, his head settled 
firmly on his shoulders, he saves his breath and 



THE LIXCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 53 

strength for the struggle. This man will whip, just 
as sure as the fight comes off. Good-bye," said he, 
** and remember what I say." From that moment I 
felt as certain of Lincoln's triumph as after it was 
won.' " 

Both speakers knew how to interest a crowd, 
and Lincoln was famous for his stories. But it 
came to be noticed that as the debates continued, 
Lincoln's stories diminished in number, while his 
earnestness in presenting the great moral issue of 
the campaign and his appeals for justice increased. 
It was observed, too, that while the people laughed 
at Douglas's stories, they went away after Lincoln's 
speech with thoughtful faces, and talked seriously 
among themselves of the points made by him. 

The more important of the debates related to a 
series of questions presented by each speaker to the 
other. Those asked by Douglas are not of special 
interest in this connection, but the entire debate 
should be read by every young American. The 
questions asked by Mr. Lincoln are of impor- 
tance because Douglas's answers to these questions, 
no doubt, led to the division of the Democratic 
party in 1860, his defeat for the Presidency, and the 
election of Lincoln. 

These questions were : 

"1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means en- 
tirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a 



54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

State Constitution, and ask admission into the Union 
under it, before they have the requisite number of 
inhabitants according to the English Bill — some 
ninety-three thousand — will you vote to admit them ? 

"2. Can the people of a United States Territory, 
in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen 
of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits 
prior to the formation of a State Constitution ? 

"3. If the Supreme Court of the United States 
shall decide that States can not exclude slavery from 
their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in adopt- 
ing and following such decision as a rule of political 
action ? 

"4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional 
territory, in disregard of how such acquisition may 
aflPect the Nation on the slavery question ?" 

A friend to whom Lincoln submitted these ques- 
tions, told him that Douglas would see that an an- 
swer, giving practical force and effect to the Dred 
Scott decision in the Territories, would inevitably 
lose him the battle, and that he would therefore 
reply by offering the decision as an abstract princi- 
ple, but denying its practical application. 

"If he does that," said Lincoln, "he can never 
be President." 

" But," said the friend, " that is not your look- 
out ; you are after the senatorship." 

"No, sir," he replied, " I am killing larger 



THE LIXCOLIf AND DO UGLAS DEB A TE. 55 

game. The battle of I860 is worth a hundred of 
this." 

Lincoln received the larger popular vote, but 
Douglas carried the Legislature, and was elected 
United States senator. Two years later Lincoln's 
prediction was fulfilled. Douglas's answer to Lin- 
coln's questions did not satisfy the slaveholders 
of the South. They refused to support him, se- 
ceded from the Democratic National Convention, 
and nominated a candidate of their own. 

Lincoln's speeches attracted the attention of Re- 
publicans throughout the country to him as an 
available man for the Presidential nomination. 



LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH. 

R. LINCOLN'S debate with Douglas had at- 
tracted national attention. People in the 
East had heard of him as a Western politician 
famous for his jokes. But a man who could van- 
quish Stephen A. Douglas, one of the ablest and 
most polished speakers in the land, must, they 
thought, be something more than "a teller of jokes." 
There was great curiosity to hear him, and he was 
invited to lecture in Plymouth Church. He con- 
sented to do so, on condition that he might speak on 
a political subject. 

Before Lincoln arrived in New York, those in 
charge of the lecture decided that it should be de- 
livered in Cooper Institute, the largest hall in the 
city. Mr. Lincoln was surprised, and expressed the 
fear that he would not be able to meet the expecta- 
tions which the change of place indicated. 

There was a vast audience, including many of 
the most distinguished men of the time. Perhaps 
hundreds were drawn simply by curiosity to see the 
man they had read so much about. That he was 
a scholar or a statesman they did not suppose. 
William Culleu Bryant, the poet, presided. 
56 



I.IXCOLX'S COOPER IXsflTUTE SPEECH. 57 

Mr. Lincoln had carefully prepared his speech. 
It8 object was to show that the fathers of the Repub- 
lic knew as much about the slavery question as did 
the people of 1860, and that they desired to prevent 
its extension. It contained incidents, but they were 
designed to clinch his argument, not to amuse his 
hearers. The audience was charmed with his elo- 
quence, and impressed with his ability and states- 
manship. His closing sentence was a bugle-blast: 
" Let us have faith that right is might, and 
let us ix that faith, to the end, dare to do 
our duty as we understand it." 

This lecture directed the attention yf the people 
of the East to Lincoln as an available candidate 
for President, and contributed very much to his 
nomination at Chicago a few mouths later. 



SECRET OF LINCOLN'S POWER AS A 
SPEAKER. 

ON the morning following Lincoln's great speech 
in Norwich, Connecticut, Rev. J. P. Gulliver 
met Mr. Lincoln on the cars, and entered into 
conversation with him, which he afterward related 
in the Independent. In speaking of his speech, 
Mr. Gulliver remarked to Mr. Lincoln that he 
thought it the most remarkable one he ever heard. 

"Are you sincere in what you say ?" inquired 
Mr. Lincoln. 

" I mean every word of it," replied the minister. 
"Indeed, sir," he continued, " I learned more of the 
art of public speaking last evening than I could 
from a whole course of lectures on rhetoric." 

Then Mr. Lincoln informed him of "a most ex- 
traordinary circumstance" that occurred at New 
Haven a few days previously. A professor of rhet- 
oric in Yale College, he had been told, came to hear 
him, took notes of his speech, and gave a lecture 
on it to his class the following day ; and, not sat- 
isfied with that, followed him to Meriden the next 
evening, and heard him again for the same purpose. 
58 



LiyCOLN'S PO WER AS A SPEAKER. 59 

All this seemed to Mr. Lincoln to be " very ex- 
traordinary." He had been sufficiently astonished 
by his success in the West; but he had no expecta- 
tion of any marked success in the East, particu- 
larly among literary and learned men. 

"Now," said Mr. Lincoln, "I should very much 
like to know what it was in my speech which you 
thought so remarkable, and which interested my 
friend the professor so much?" 

Mr. Gulliver's auswer was : 

"The clearness of your statements, the unan- 
swerable style of your reasoning, and, especially, 
your illustrations, which were romance and pathos, 
and fun and logic, all welded together." 

After Mr. Gulliver had fully satisfied his curi- 
osity by a further exposition of the politician's 
peculiar power, Mr. Lincoln said: 

" I am much obliged to you for this. I have 
been wishing for a long time to find some one who 
would make this analysis for me. It throws light 
on a subject which has been dark to me. I can un- 
derstand very readily how such a power as you have 
ascribed to me will account for the effect which 
seems to be produced by my speeches. I hope you 
have not been too flattering in your estimate. Cer- 
tainly, I have had a most wonderful success for a 
man of my limited education." 

" That suggests, Mr- Lincoln, an inquiry which 



60 ABRAHAM LiyCOLX 

has several time beeu upon my lips during this 
conversation," said Mr. Gulliver. " I want very 
much to know how you got this unusual power of 
putting things. It must have been a matter of ed- 
ucation. No man has it by nature alone. What 
has your education been ?" 

" Well, as to education, the newspapers are cor- 
rect," replied Lincoln ; " I never went to school 
more than six months in my life. But, as you say, 
this must be a product of culture in some form. I 
have been putting the question you ask me to my- 
self, while you have been talking. I can say this, 
that among my earliest recollections I remember 
how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated 
when anybody talked to me in a way I could not 
understand. I do n't think I ever got angry at 
anything else in my life. But that always disturbed 
my temper, and has ever since. I can remember 
going to my little bedroom, after hearing the 
neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and 
spending no small part of the night walking up 
and down, and trying to make out what was the 
exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark say- 
ings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, 
when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I 
had caught it ; and when I thought I had got it, I 
was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and 
over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as 



LINCOLN'S POWER AS A SPEAKER. 61 

I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. 
This was a kind of passion with me, and it has 
stuck by me ; for I am never easy now, when I 
am handling a thought, till I have bounded it 
north, and bounded it south, and bounded it east, 
and bounded it west. Perhaps that accounts for 
the characteristic you observe in my speeches, 
though I never put the two things together before." 

" Mr. Lincoln," said Mr. Gulliver, " I thank you 
for this. It is the most splendid educational fact I 
ever happened upon. This is genius, with all its 
impulsive, inspiring, dominating power over the 
mind of its possessor, developed by education into 
talent, with its uniformity, its permanence, and its 
disciplined strength — always ready, always availa- 
ble, never capricious — the highest possession of the 
human intellect. But, let me ask, did you prepare 
for your profession ?" 

" O yes ! I read law, as the phrase is ; that is, 
I became a lawyer's clerk in Springfield, and copied 
tedious documents, and picked up what I could of 
law in the intervals of other work. But your 
question reminds me of a bit of education I had, 
which I am bound in honesty to mention. In the 
course of my law-reading, I constantly came upon 
the word demonstrate. I thought at first that I un- 
derstood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that 
I did not. I said to myself, ' What do I mean 



62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

when I demonstrate more than when I reason or 
prove? How does demonstration differ from any- 
other proof?' I consulted Webster's Dictionary. 
That told of certain proof, proof beyond the possi- 
bility of doubt ; but I could form no idea what 
sort of proof that was. I thought a great many 
things were proved beyond a possibility of doubt, 
without recourse to any such extraordinary process 
of reasoning as I understood demonstration to be. 
I consulted all the dictionaries and books of ref- 
erence I could find, but witli no better results. You 
might as well have defined blue to a blind man. At 
last I said: 'Lincoln, you can never make a law- 
yer if you do not understand what demonstrate 
means;' and I left ray situation in Springfield, went 
home to my father's house, and staid there till I 
could give any proposition in the six books of 
Euclid at sight. I then found out what demon- 
strate means, and went back to my law-studies." 



LINCOLK'S NOMINATION FOR THE 
PRESIDENCY. 

TSAAC X. ARNOLD, id his "Life of Lincoln," 
-L thus describes the nomination of Lincoln : 

"The leading candidates for the Presidency were 
William H. Seward, of New York ; Abraham Lin- 
coln, of Illinois; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; Simon 
Cameron, of Pennsylvania ; and Edward Bates, of 
Missouri; but it early became apparent that the 
contest was between Seward and Lincoln. 

" On the first day of the Convention the friends 
of Lincoln discovered that there was an organized 
body of New Yorkers and others in the * Wigwam' 
who cheered vociferously whenever Seward's name 
was mentioned, or any allusion was made to him. 
The New Yorkers did the shouting, Lincoln's 
friends were modest and quiet. 

"At the meeting of the Illinois delegation at 

the Tremont, on the evening of the first day, at 

which Judd, Davis, Cook, and others were present, 

it was decided that on the second day Illinois and 

the West should be heard. There was then living 

in Chicago a man whose voice could drown the 

63 



64 ABJiA n. 1 y[ lixcolx. 

roar of Lake Michigan in its wildest fury ; nay, it 
was said that his shout could be heard, on a calm 
day, across that lake. Cook, of Ottawa, knew an- 
other man, living on the Illinois River, a Dr. 
Ames, who had never found his equal in his ability 
to shout and huzzah. He was, however, a Demo- 
crat. 

" Cook telegraphed for him to come to Chicago 
by the first train. These two men with stento- 
rian voices met some of the Illinois delegation at 
the Tremont House, and were instructed to organize 
each a body of men to cheer and shout, which they 
speedily did out of the ci'owds which were in at- 
tendance from the Northwest. They were placed 
on opposite sides of the ' Wigwam,' and instructed 
that when Cook took out his white handkerchief 
they were to cheer, and not to cease until he re- 
turned it to his pocket. Cook was conspicuous on 
the platform, and, at the first utterance of the name 
of Lincoln, simultaneously with the wave of Cook's 
handkerchief, there went up such a cheer, such a 
shout as never before had been heard, and which 
startled the friends of Seward as the cry of * Mar- 
mion,' on Flodden Field, ' startled the Scottish foe.' 
The New Yorkers tried to fi)llow when the name 
of Seward was spoken, but, beaten at their own 
game, their voices were instantly and absolutely 
drowned by cheers for Lincoln. This was kept 



NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 65 

up until Lincoln was nominated, amid a storm of 
applause never before equaled. 

''Ames was so carried away with his enthusiasm 
for Lincoln that he joined the Republican party, 
and continued to shout for Lincoln during the 
whole campaign ; he was afterward rewarded with 
a country post-office. 

" While the Convention was in session Lincoln 
was at his home in Springfield. The proceedings 
and the result of each ballot Avere immediately 
communicated to him by a telegraph wire extend- 
ing from the ' Wigwam.' At the time of the second 
ballot Lincoln was with some friends in the office 
of the Sangamon Journal Soon a gentleman hast- 
ily entered from the telegraph office, bearing a slip 
of paper on which his nomination — the result of the 
third ballot— was written. He read the paper to 
himself, and then aloud, and then, without stopping 
to receive congratulations of his friends, he said : 
' There is a little woman down at our house who 
would like to hear this. I '11 go down and tell her.' 
The incident speaks relatively of the affectionate 
relations between him and his wife. She was far 
more anxious that he should be President than he 
himself was, and her early dream was now to be 
realized. 

" No words can adequately describe the enthu- 
siasm with which this nomination was received in 

6 



QQ ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 

Chicago, in Illinois, and throughout the Northwest. 
A man who had been placed on top of the Wigwam 
to announce to the thousands outside the progress 
of the balloting, as soon as the secretary read the 
result of the third ballot, shouted to those below : 
* Fire the salute — Lincoln is nominated,' 
The cannon was fired, and before its reverberations 
died away a hundred thousand voters of Illinois 
and the neighboring States were shouting, scream- 
ing, and rejoicing at the result." 

Immediately aiter the Convention adjourned, a 
committee visited Mr. Lincoln in Springfield, 111., to 
inform him officially of his nomination. After this 
ceremony had passed, Mr. Lincoln remarked that, 
as an appropriate conclusion to an interview so im- 
portant and interesting, he supposed good manners 
would require that he should furnish the committee 
something to drink ; and opening a door, he called 
out, " Mary ! Mary !" A girl responded to the 
call, to whom Mr. Lincoln spoke a few words in an 
undertone. In a few minutes the maiden entered, 
bearing a large waiter, containing several glass 
tumblers and a large pitcher, and placed it upon 
the center-table. 

Mr. Lincoln arose, and gravely addressing the 
company, said : " Gentlemen, we must pledge our 
mutual healths in the most healthy beverage whicU 
God has given to man. It is the only beverage I have 



NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 67 

ever used or allowed in my family, and I can not 
conscientiously depart from it on the present oc- 
casion ; it is pure Adam's ale from the spring ;" 
and, taking a tumbler, he touched it to his lips, and 
pledged them his highest respects in a cup of cold 
water. 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF THE CAM- 
PAIGN OF 1860. 

" TOURING the campaign of 1860," says J. G. 
Lf Holland, in his "Life of Lincoln," "Mr. 
Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public In- 
struction for the State of Illinois, occupied a room 
adjoining and opening into the executive chamber 
at Springfield, and he saw Mr. Lincoln nearly every 
day. Often when Mr. Lincoln was tired, he closed 
the door against all intruders, and called Mr. Bate- 
man into his room for a quiet talk. Ou one ot 
these occasions, Mr. Lincoln took up a book con- 
taining a careful canvass of the city of Springfield, 
in which he lived, showing the candidate for whom 
each citizen had declared it his intention to vote in 
the approaching election. Mr. Lincoln's friends 
had, doubtless at his own request, placed the result 
of the canvass in his hands. This was only a few 
days before election. Calling Mr. Bateman to a 
seat by his side, having previously locked all the 
doors, he said : ' Let us look over this book ; I 
wish particularly to see how the ministers of Spring- 
field are going to vote.' The leaves were turned, 
68 



CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 



69 



one by one, and as the names were examined, Mr. 
Lincoln frequently asked if this one and that were 
not a minister or an elder, or a member of such or 
such Church, and sadly expressed his surprise on 
receiving an affirmative answer. In that manner 
they went through the book, and then he closed it, 
and sat silently for some minutes regarding a mem- 
orandum in pencil which lay before him. At 
length, he turned to Mr. Batcman, with a face full 
of sadness, and said : 

"'Here are twenty-three ministers, of different 
denominations, and all of them are against me but 
three ; and here are a great many prominent mem- 
bers of the Churches, a very large majority are 
against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian- 
God knows I would be one— but I have carefully 
read the Bible, and I do not so understand this 
book;' and he drew forth a pocket New Testament. 
^ These men well know,' he continued, ' that I am 
for freedom in the Territories, freedom everywhere 
as free as the Constitution and the laws will permit, 
and that my opponents are for slavery. They hiow 
this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the 
light of which human bondage can not live a mo- 
ment, they are going to vote against me. I do not 
understand it at all.' 

"Here :Mr. Lincoln paused— paused for long 
minutes— his features surcharged with emotion, 



/ ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Then he rose and walked up and down the recep- 
tion-room in the effort to retain or regain his self- 
possession. Stopping at last, he said, with a trem- 
bling voice and cheeks wet with tears : ' I know 
there is a God, and that he hates injustice and 
slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that 
his hand is in it. If he has a place and work for 
me — and I think he has — I believe I am ready. I 
am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am 
right, because I know that liberty is right; for Christ 
teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them 
that a house divided against itself can not stand ; 
and Christ and reason say the same ; and they will 
find it so. Douglas don't care whether slavery is 
voted up or down ; but God cares, and humanity 
cares, and I care, and, with God's help, I shall not 
fail. I may not see the end, but it will come, and 
I shall be vindicated ; and these men will find that 
they have not read their Bible right.' 

" Much of this w^as uttered as if he was speaking 
to himself, and with a sad, earnest solemnity of 
manner impossible to be described. After a pause, 
he resumed : ' Does n't it appear strange that men 
can ignore the moral aspect of this contest? A rev- 
elation could not make it plainer to me that slavery 
or the Government must be destroyed. The future 
would be something awful, as I look at it, but for 
this rock on which I stand' — alluding to the Testa- 



CA3IPAIGN OF 1860. 71 

ment which he still held in his hancW especially 
with the knowledge of how these ministers are going 
to vote. It seems as if God had borne with this 
thine [slavery] until the very teachers of religion 
had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim 
for it a divine character and sanction ; and now the 
cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be 
poured out.' After this the conversation was con- 
tinued for a long time. Everything he said was of a 
peculiarly deep, tender, and religious tone, and all 
was tinged with a touching melancholy. He re- 
peatedly referred to his conviction that the day of 
wrath was at hand, and that he was to be an actor 
in the terrible struggle which would issue in the 
overthrow of slavery, though he might not live to 

see the end. . 

" After further reference to a belief in Divine 
providence and the fact of God in history, the 
conversation turned upon prayer. He freely stated 
his belief in the duty, privilege, and efficacy ot 
prayer, and intimated, in no mistakable terms, that 
he had sought in that way the Divine guidance and 
favor The eff'ect of this conversation upon the 
mind of Mr. Bateman, a Christian gentleman whom 
Mr Lincoln profoundly respected, was to convince 
him that Mr. Lincoln had, in his quiet way, found 
a path to the Christian standpoint-that he had 
found God, and rested on the eternal truth of God. 



72 ABU A HA M LINCOLN. 

As the two men were about to separate, Mr. Bate- 
man remarked : ' I have not supposed that you 
w^ere accustomed to think so much upon this class 
of subjects. Certainly your friends generally are 
ignorant of the sentiments you have expressed to 
me.' He replied quickly : ' I know they are, but 
I think more on these subjects than upon all others, 
and I have done so for years; and I am willing you 
should know it.' " 

Mr. Lincoln, however, did receive the general 
support of the religious people of the North. Not 
only did they vote for him, but upon his inaugura- 
tion as President, prayers were offered in thousands 
of churches and at many family altars that he might 
be divinely guided. 



"ONE WAR AT A TIME." 

NEXT to the Emancipation Proclamation, the 
most important act of Mr. Lincoln's Adminis- 
tration was that in regard to England's demand for 
the release of Mason and Slidell. 

These gentlemen were the accredited envoys of 
the Confederacy to England and France. They 
ran the blockade at Charleston, and reached Havana. 
There they took passage on the British Royal Mail 
steamship Trent, November 7, 1861. Captain 
Wilkes, of the United States steam sloop-of-war San 
Jacinto, who knew of their movements, lay in wait 
for the Trent, and the next day, in the Bahama 
Channel, fired a shot across her bows and brought 
her to. He then boarded the vessel, and, against 
the angry protests of the English captain, took off 
Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who were soon after- 
ward confined in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. 

Captain Wilkes's action was received with enthu- 
siasm throughout the North, and he was congratu- 
lated by the Secretary of the Navy and praised by 
Secretary Stanton. Congress passed a vote of 
thanks for hi?" brave^ adroit, and patriotic conduct." 

73 



74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

President Lincolu did not join in the congratu- 
lations. Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., in his " Life of 
Lincoln," says : 

" He was scarcely even non-committal. On the 
contrary, he is said at once to have remarked that it 
did not look right to stop the vessel of a friendly 
power on the high seas and take passengers out of 
her; that he did not understand whence Captain 
Wilkes derived authority to turn his quarter-deck 
into a court of admiralty ; that he was afraid the cap- 
tives might prove to be white elephants on our hands; 
that we had fought Great Britain on the ground of 
like doings upon her part, and that now we must 
stick to American principles ; that if England in- 
sisted upon our surrendering the prisoners, we must 
do so, and must apologize, and bind her over to 
keep the peace in relation to neutrals, and to admit 
that she had been wrong for sixty years." 

What pleased the Americans angered the Britons. 
Orders were at once issued to the English navy- 
yards to make immediate preparations for war, and 
the English newspapers were filled with abuse of 
and threats against the United States. Lord Pal- 
inerston, in the heat of passion, hastily wrote a dis- 
patch to Lord Lyons, directing him to demand im- 
mediate reparation. The missive was couched in 
such threatening and insolent language, that Mr. 
Lincolu must have refused to comply with its de- 



ONE WAR AT A TIME. 75 

mand, and war would probably have been the re- 
sult. Fortunately, Lord Palmerston, before send- 
ing the dispatch to Lord Lyons, submitted it to the 
Queen, who secured the elimination of the offensive 
language, though the tone remained peremptory. 

Lord Lyons received the dispatch December 
19th. Before delivering it officially he talked over 
its contents with Secretary of State Seward, inform- 
ally. Mr. Lincoln suggested arbitration, which was 
refused, Lord Lyons having no authority for such 
action. 

Having admitted that England was right, Mr. 
Lincoln felt that no other course could be pursued 
than to surrender the envoys. To those who pro- 
tested and did not view the legal aspects of the 
case as himself, he said : " One war at a time." It 
would have been more agreeable to him to have 
protracted the diplomatic settlement; but this, un- 
der the circumstances, was not possible. 

In his official reply, Secretary of State Seward 
reminded the English Government that the United 
States, in 1812, had fought against England for ex- 
ercising the right she claimed to stop their vessels 
on the high seas and search them for British sub- 
jects. He was glad to find her renouncing this old- 
time error. Captain Wilkes had acted without in- 
structions, and had made a mistake. 

*' No one," says Arnold. " can calculate the re- 



76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

suits which would have followed upon a refusal to 
surrender these men." Morse expresses the opin- 
ion that "an almost certain result would have been 
a war with England ; and a highly probable result 
would have been that erelong France also would 
find pretext for hostilities, since she was committed 
to friendship with England in this matter, and, 
moreover, the emperor seemed to have a restless 
desire to interfere against the North." 



CONSIDERING THE EMANCIPATION 
PROCLAMATION. 



" TT was the purpose of the President" wrote Ex- 
-*- Secretary Usher in the New York Tribune, 
"to issue a proclamation looking to the emancipa- 
tion of slaves during the summer of 1862, but 
in consequence of the unexpected misadventure of 
General McClellan in the Peninsula before Rich- 
mond, it was considered prudent to delay the proc- 
lamation until some decisive advantage should be 
gained by the armies in the field. Accordingly, 
soon after the Battle of Autietam, the first Procla- 
mation of Emancipation was made. By that, one 
hundred days were given the States in rebellion to 
resume their normal condition in the Government. 
" In the preparation of the final Proclamation of 
Emancipation, of January 1, 1863, Mr. Lincoln 
manifested great solicitude. He had his original 
draft printed, and furnished each member of his 
Cabinet with a copy,, with the request that each 
should examine, criticise, and suggest any amend- 
ments that occurred to them. 

"At the next meeting of the Cabinet, Mr. Chase 

77 



78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

said : ' This paper is of the utmost importance, 
greater than any State paper ever made by this 
Government. A paper of so much importance, and 
involving the liberties of so many people, ought, I 
think, to make some reference to Deity. I do not 
observe anything of the kind in it.' 

"Mr. Lincoln said: 'No, I overlooked it. Some 
reference to Deity must be inserted. Mr. Chase, 
won't you make a draft of what you think ought 
to be inserted ?' 

" Mr. Chase promised to do so, and at the next 
meeting presented the following : 'And upon this 
Act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, war- 
ranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, 
I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and<% 
the gracious favor of Almighty God.' 

"When Mr. Lincoln read the paragraph, Mr. 
Chase said: 'You may not approve it, but I thought 
this, or something like it, would be appropriate.' 

"Lincoln replied: 'I do approve it; it can not 
be bettered, and I will adopt it in the very words 
you have written.' 

" When the parts of the Proclamation contain- 
ing the exception from its operation of States and 
parts of States were considered, Mr. Montgomery 
Blair spoke of the importance of the Proclamation 
as a state paper, and said that persons in after times 
in seeking correct information of the occurrences of 



THE EMAKCIPA TIOX PROCLAMA TIOK 79 

those times, would read and wonder why the thir- 
teen parishes and the city of New Orleans, in 
Louisiana, and the counties in Virginia about Nor- 
folk, were excepted from the Proclamation, that they 
were in the ' very heart and back of slavery,' and 
unless there was some good reason which was then 
unknown to him, he hoped they would not be ex- 
cepted. Mr. Seward said: 'I think so too; lUhink 
they should not be excepted.' 

"Mr. Lincoln replied: 'AVell, upon first view, 
your objections are clearly good; but after I issued 
the Proclamation of September 22d, Mr. Bouligny, 
of Louisiana, then here, came to see me. He was 
a great invalid and had scarcely the strength to 
walk up-stairs. He wanted to know of me, if these 
parishes in Louisiana and New Orleans should hold 
an election, and elect members of Congress, whether 
I would not except them from this Proclamation. 
I told him I would.' Continuing he said: ^No, I 
did not do that in so many words ; if he was here now 
he could not repeat any words I said which would 
amount to an absolute promise. But I know he 
understood me that way, and that is just the same 
to me. They have elected members and they are 
here now — Union men, ready to take their seats — 
and they have elected a Union man from the Nor- 
folk District.' 

" Mr. Blair said : ' If you have a promise out, I 



80 A BRA HA M LTXCOLK 

will not ask you to break it.' Seward said : ' No, 
no ; we would not have you do that.' Mr. Chase 
then said : 'Very true, they have elected Hahn and 
Flanders, but they have not yet got their seats, and 
it is not certain that they will.' 

"Mr. Lincoln arose from his seat, apparently 
irritated, and walked rapidly back and forth across 
the room. Looking over his shoulder at Mr. Chase, 
he said : ' There it is, sir. I am to be bullied by 
Congress, am I? If I do, I'll be durned.' 

"Nothing more was said. A month or more 
thereafter, Hahn and Flanders were admitted to their 
seats." 



THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH. 



MR. LINCOLN'S most famous speech was the 
short one delivered at the dedication of the 
Soldiers' Cemetery on the battle-field at Gettys- 
burg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863. 

The oration of the occasion was delivered by the 
distinguished scholar, Edward Everett. His speech 
lasted two hours, Mr. Lincoln's less than five min- 
utes. The latter had been thought out, but was 
changed slightly during its delivery. As revised 
afterward by Mr. Lincoln for the Baltimore Fair, 
it is as follows : 

" Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. 

" Now we are engaged in a great civil war, test- 
ing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived 
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on 
a great battle-field of that war. We have come to 
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 
place for those who here gave their lives that that 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and 

pi'oper that we should do this. 

6 81 



B2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we 
can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here 
have consecrated it far above our poor power to 
add or detract. The world will little note nor long 
remember what we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, 
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us — that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion — that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain — that this Nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — 
and that government of the people, by the people, 
for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

A few hours after the delivery of these few 
words Mr. Everett said : " I would rather be the 
author of those twenty lines than to have all the 
fame my oration of to-day will give me." He 
spoke truly. Everett's oration is almost forgotten, 
while Lincoln's is read wherever the English lan- 
guage is spoken. 



MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 

SCHUYLER COLFAX, Vice-President of the 
United States, wrote in " Rice's Reminiscences 
of Lincoln :" 

"No man clothed with such vast power ever 
wielded it more tenderly and more forbearingly. 
No man holding in his hands the key of life and 
death ever pardoned so many offenders, and so 
easily. Judge Bates, of Missouri, his Attorney- 
General, insisted that lack of sternness was a 
marked defect in Lincoln's character. He told Mr. 
Lincoln once in my presence that this defect made 
him unfit to be trusted with the pardoning power. 
Any touching story, especially one told by a 
woman, was certain to warp, if not to control, his 
decision. 

" One winter night, while Congress was in ses- 
sion, I left all other business and asked him to 
pardon the sou of a former constituent sentenced 
to be shot at Davenport Barracks, Iowa, for deser- 
tion. Pie heard the story with his usual patience, 
although worried out with incessant calls and cares, 
then replied: 

"*Some of my generals complain that I impair 

83 



84 ABttAHA^t LINCOLN. 

discipline by my frequent pardons and reprieves ; 
but -it rests me, after a day's hard work, that I 
can find some excuse for saving some poor fellow's 
life; and I shall go to bed happy to-night as I 
think how joyous the signing of this name will 
make himself, his family, and friends.' And with 
a smile beaming on his care-furrowed face, he signed 
that name and saved that life." 

A personal friend of Mr. Lincoln says : " I 
called on him one day in the early part of the 
war. He had just written a pardon for a young 
man who had been sentenced to be shot for sleep- 
ing at his post as a sentinel. He remarked as he 
read it to me : 

"'I could not think of going into eternity with 
the blood of the poor young man on my skirts.' 
Then he added : ' It is not to be wondered at that 
a boy, raised on a farm, probably in the habit of 
going to bed at dark, should, when required to 
watch, fall asleep; and I can not consent to shoot 
him for such an act,' " 

Rev. Newman Hall, in a sermon upon Mr. 
Lincoln's death, said that the dead body of this 
boy was found among the slain on the field of 
Fredericksburg, wearing next to his heart a photo- 
graph of his preserver, beneath which he had writ- 
ten, " God bless President Lincoln !" 

Mr. Hall in the same sermon stated that 



MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 85 

an officer of the army, in conversation with the 
preacher, said : 

"The first week of my command, there were 
twenty-four deserters sentenced by court-martial 
to be shot, and the warrants for their execution 
were sent to the President to be signed. He re- 
fused. I went to Washington and had an inter- 
view. I said : 

" ' Mr. President, unless these men are made an 
example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy 
to the few is cruelty to the many.' 

"He replied: 'General, there are already too 
many weeping widows in the United States. For 
God's sake, do n't ask me to add to the number, 
for I won't do it.' " 

One day, Mr. Alley, a member of Congress, who 
called at the White House on business, saw in the 
crowd an old man crying as if his heart would 
break. Such a sight was so common that the con- 
gressman paid no attention to it. The next day he 
again called at the White House, and found the old 
man still there, crying. His heart was touched, 
and he asked him : " What is the matter, old 
man?" 

The old man told him the story of his boy, a 
soldier in General Butler's Army of the James, 
who had been convicted of some crime, and sen- 
tenced to be shot the next week. His congress- 



66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

man was convinced of the boy's guilt, and would 
not interfere. 

" Well/' said Mr. Alley, " I will take you into 
the Executive chamber after I have finished my 
business, and you can tell Mr. Lincoln all about it." 

On being introduced into Mr. Lincoln's pres- 
ence, he was asked : " Well, my old friend, what can 
I do for you to-day ?" 

The old man then repeated to Mr. Lincoln what 
he had already told the congressman in the ante- 
room. A cloud of sorrow came over the President's 
face, as he replied : 

" I am sorry to say I can do nothing for you. 
Listen to this telegram received from General But- 
ler yesterday : ' President Lincoln, I pray you not 
to interfere with the courts-martial of the army. 
You will destroy all discipline among our soldiers. — 
B. F. Butler.' " 

Every word of this dispatch seemed like a death- 
knell to the old man. Mr. Lincoln watched his 
grief for a minute, and then exclaimed : 

"By jingo, Butler or no Butler, here goes!" — 
writing a few words and handing them to the old 
man. 

The confidence created by Mr. Lincoln's words 
broke down when he read : " Job Smith is not to 
be shot until further orders from me. — Abraham 
Lincoln." 



MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 87 

" Why," said the old man, " I thought it M'as to 
be a j^ardou ; but you say, ' not to be shot until 
furtlier orders/ and you may order him to be shot 
next week." 

Mr. Lincoln smiled, and replied : " Well, my old 
friend, I see you are not very well acquainted with 
me. If your son never looks on death till further 
orders come from me to shoot him, he will live to 
be a great deal older than Methuselah." 

General McClellan sent for the President in a 
critical hour, and he responded by starting at once, 
accompanied by Stanton. They had no sooner 
alighted from the car on reaching army headquar- 
ters, than Stanton approached General McClellan, 
and brusquely addressed him by saying : " Why 
are you delaying an advance ? AVhat keeps you 
from hurling this army on to the foe ?" 

" I have asked the President and you to come 
personally," said the general, " that you might see 
for yourself the necessity for re-enforcements, the 
depleted ranks of our army, the broken condition 
to which the last engagement has reduced us." 
Meanwhile the dead and wounded were being car- 
ried from the battle-field. The lanterns of the men 
who moved among the slain shone out like fireflies 
as they progressed. 

As one stretcher was passing Mr. Lincoln, he 
heard the voice of a lad calling to his mother in 



88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

agonizing tones. His great heart filled. He for- 
got the crisis of the iiour. His very being concen- 
trated itself in the cries of the dying boy. Stop- 
ping the carriers, he knelt, and bending over him, 
asked : 

" What can I do for you, my poor child ?" 

" O, you will do nothing for me/' he replied. 
" You are a Yankee. I can not hope that my mes- 
sages to my mother will ever reach her." 

" Mr. Lincoln's tears, his voice full of the ten- 
derest love, convinced the boy of his sincerity, and 
he gave his good-bye words without reserve. The 
President directed them copied, and ordered that 
they be sent that night, with a flag of truce, into 
the enemy's lines. He only told the soldier who 
he was to convince him that his word would be 
obeyed, and when told that time was precious, as 
the distant outposts must yet be visited, he arose 
reluctantly and entered the ambulance. With sobs 
and tears he turned to Mark Lemon, his friend, and 
said : 

" Mark, my heart is breaking. Sing me some- 
thing ; sing the old song I love, ' Oft in the stilly 
night.' " 

" I was waiting my turn to speak to the Presi- 
dent one day, some three or four weeks since," said 
Mr. M , " when my attention was attracted by 



MR. LIXCOLX'S TENDERNESS. 89 

the sad, patient face of a woman advanced in life, 
who, in a faded hood and shawl, was among the ap- 
plicants for an interview. 

" Presently Mr. Lincoln turned to her, saying, 
in his accustomed manner, * Well, my good woman, 
what can I do for you this morning ?' ' Mr. Pres- 
ident,' said she, ' my husband and three sons all 
went into the army. My husband was killed in 

the fight at . I get along very badly since 

then, living all alone, and I thought I would come 
and ask you to release to me my oldest son.' Mr. 
Lincoln looked into her face a moment, and in his 
kindest accents responded : ' Certainly ! certainly ! 
If you have given us all, and your prop has been 
taken away, you are justly entitled to one of your 
boys !' He immediately made out an order dis- 
charging the young man, which the woman took, 
and thanking him gratefully, went away. 

" I had forgotten the circumstance," continued 

M , " till last week, when happening to be here 

again, who should come in but the same woman. 
It appeared that she had gone herself to the front, 
with the President's order, and found the son she 
was in search of had been mortally wounded in a 
recent engagement, and taken to a hospital. She 
found the hospital, but the boy was dead, or died 
while she was there. The surgeon in charge made 



90 ABRAHA3I LINCOLN. 

a memorandum of the facts upon the back of the 
President's order, and, almost broken-hearted, the 
poor woman had found her way again into Mr. Lin- 
coln's presence. He was much affected by her appear- 
ance and story, and said : ' I know what you wish 
me to do now, and I shall do it without your ask- 
ing ; I shall release to you your second son.' Upon 
this, he took up his pen aud commenced writing 
the order. While he was writing, the poor woman 
stood by his side, the tears running down her face, 
and passed her hand softly over his head, stroking 
his rough hair, as I have seen a fond mother caress 
a son. By the time he had finished writing, his 
own heart and eyes were full. He handed her the 
paper : * Now,' said he, ' you have one and /one of 
the other two left ; that is no more than right.' 
She took the paper, and reverently placing her hand 
again upon his head, the tears still upon her cheeks, 
said : ' The Lord bless you, Mr. Lincoln. May 
you live a thousand years, aud may you always be 
the head of this great Nation!'" 

Thaddeus Stevens, " the Great Commoner," often 
criticised Mr. Lincoln very severely for not being 
aggressive and destructive enough. One day Mr. 
Stevens went with an old lady from Lancaster 
County, Pa. (his district), to the White House, to 
ask the pardon of her son, condemned to die for 
sleeping on his post. 



3IR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. ' 91 

Mr. Lincoln suddenly turned upon his Pennsyl- 
vania critic, and said : 

"Now, Tbad, what would you do in this case, 
if you happened to be President ?" 

Mr. Stevens knew that many hundreds of his 
constituents were waiting anxiously to hear the re- 
sult of that old woman's visit to Washington. He 
did not relish the President's appeal, but replied 
that, as he knew of the extenuating circumstances, 
in tbis particular case he would certainly pardon him. 

" Well, tben," said Mr. Lincoln, after a mo- 
ment's writing in silence, " here, madam, is your 
son's pardon." 

The old lady's gratitude filled her heart to over- 
flowing. It seemed to her as though her son had 
been snatched from the gateway of the grave. She 
could only thank the President with her tears as 
she passed out ; but when she and Mr. Stevens had 
reached the outer door of the White House she 
burst out excitedly : 

" I knew it was a lie ! I knew it was a lie !" 

" What do you mean ?" asked Mr. Stevens, in 
astonishment. 

" Why, when I left my country home in old 
Lancaster yesterday, the neighbors told me that I 
would find that Mr. Lincoln was an ugly man, 
when he is really the handsomest man I ever saw 
in my life." 



92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Rev. Wayland Hoyt, D. D., in the Standard, re- 
lates the following, which he says is the tenderest 
story he ever heard about Mr. Lincoln : 

" Private William Scott had had a long day's 
march, and had been a sentry all the night before, 
but when the night came again, and a sick friend of 
his was chosen sentry, he volunteered to take his 
friend's place. But Private Scott was a farmer's 
boy, and he had not been used to being awake 
nights, and he was found asleep at his post. The 
army was in a dangerous neighborhood at Chain 
Bridge, and discipline must be preserved. He 
was sentenced to be shot. They sent to Mr. Lin- 
coln to see if he could do anything, if he could 
pardon hira. At first he said he could not; then 
he told them that he would go down to Chain 
Bridge to see the boy. 

"Private Scott was in his tent waiting to be 
shot, when the flap was raised, and there stood 
Mr. Lincoln. Scott said he knew him to be Mr. 
Lincoln by a medal he wore of him. He said 
he was very much frightened to be in the pres- 
ence of so great a man. Mr. Lincoln began to 
talk to him, and asked where he was from. He 
told him from Vermont. Mr. Lincoln asked him 
about the farm, and he asked him about his 
mother. Private Scott told him he was very glad 
he had the picture of his mother in his blouse, 



MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 93 

and he took it out aud showed it to Mr. Lincoln. 
He looked at it, and said : * My boy, you ought 
to be very proud and glad that your mother is liv- 
ing; you never ought to act so as to make her 
cheeks blush.' 

"As he went on talking, Private Scott said he 
had made up his mind that he was going to die, and 
he was just about to ask Mr. Lincoln if he would 
not see to it that none of the boys of his regiment 
shot him, because he said, * I thought I could not 
stand that. But,' he says, ' Mr. Lincoln told me to 
stand up, and I stood up ; and he put his hands on 
my shoulders, and said : " Private Scott, look me 
in the eye." Then he said,** Private Scott, I do n't 
believe you are a coward, but you are a good sol- 
dier; I am not going to have you shot; I am going 
to send you back to your regiment. How will you 
pay my bill ?" ' And Private Scott said : ' I am very 
much obliged to you. I had made up my mind I 
must die ; but I guess we can pay your bill. I can 
put a mortgage on the farm, and when pay-day 
comes around some of the boys will help, and I 
will give you all of my pay, aud it may be $500 or 
$600, and I guess we can pay your bill.' 

" Mr. Lincoln said : ' Private Scott, there is only 
one man who can pay my bill, and that is William 
Scott. If from this moment you promise to be the 
best soldier that you possibly can be ; if you are 



94 A^RAMAM LINCOLN. 

true to the old flag, and if, when you come to die, 
and I were there, you could look nie in the eye 
and say, " Mr. Lincoln, I have kept my promise, 
and been the best soldier to the old flag that I pos- 
sibly could be," then you will pay my bill.' Mr. 
Lincoln left, and afterwards there was never such a 
soldier as Private Scott. He asked that he might 
do the hardest kind of duty in the hospital, so that 
he might teach himself how to keep awake nights. 
There was never a man whose uniform was more 
clean than his. And when the battle struck there 
never was a braver man. It was at the awful 
battles of the Wilderness, and he had accomplished 
prodigies of valor, and had carried back officer after 
officer from the bloody field; where at last he fell, 
shattered all to pieces. At last the battle was 
done. They bore him back, and his comrades 
gathered around him. He looked at them with a 
sweet smile, and said : ' Boys, I have fought my 
last battle, and I think I tried to do my duty. I 
guess you can tell my mother that ; and then, boys ' — 
and he breathed heavily — ^if you should ever any 
of you see Mr. Lincoln, I wish you would tell him 
that I — tried to keep — my promise — and be true to 
the old flag — good-bye, boys,' and he died." 

"A few days before the assassination," wrote a 
correspondent of the Independent, " when the Presi- 
dent was on his return from Richmond, he stopped 



MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 95 

at City Point. Calling upon the head surgeon at 
that place, Mr. Lincoln told him that he wished to 
visit all the hospitals under his charge, and shake 
hands with every soldier. The surgeon asked if he 
knew what he was undertaking, there being five or 
six thousand soldiers at that place, and it would be 
quite a tax upon his strength to visit all the wards 
and shake hands with every soldier. Mr. Lincoln 
answered, with a smile, he * guessed he was equal to 
the task ; at any rate he would try, aud go as far 
as he could ; he should never, probably, see the boys 
again, and he wanted tTiem to know that he appre- 
ciated what they had done for their country.' 

"Finding it useless to try to dissuade him, the 
surgeon began his rounds with the President, who 
walked from bed to bed, extending his hand to all, 
saying a few words of sympathy to some, making 
kind inquiries of others, aud welcomed by all with 
the heartiest cordiality. 

"As they passed along, they came to a ward in 
which lay a rebel who had been wounded and was 
a prisoner. As the tall figure of the kindly visitor 
appeared in sight, he was recognized by the rebel 
soldier, who, raising himself on his elbow in bed, 
watched Mr. Lincoln as he approached, and extend- 
ing his hand exclaimed, while tears ran down his 
cheeks : 

" ' Mr. Lincoln, I have long wanted to see you, 



96 ABRAHAM LIXCOLK 

to ask your forgiveness for ever raising my hand 
against the old flag.' 

" Mr. Lincoln was moved to tears. He heartily 
shook the hand of the repentant rebel, and assured 
him of his good-will, and with a few words of kind 
advice passed on. After some hours the tour of the 
various hospitals was made, and Mr. Lincoln re- 
turned with the surgeon to his office. They had 
scarcely entered, however, when a messenger came 
saying that one ward had been omitted, and 'the 
boys' wanted to see the President. The surgeon, 
who was thoroughly tired, and knew Mr. Lincoln 
must be, tried to dissuade him from going ; but the 
President said he must go back. He would not 
knowingly omit one ; ' the boys ' would be so disap- 
pointed. So he went with the messenger, accom- 
panied by the surgeon, and shook hands with the 
gratified soldiers, and then returned to the office. 

"The surgeon expressed the fear that the Presi- 
dent's arm would be lamed with so much handshak- 
ing, saying that it certainly must ache. Mr. Lincoln 
smiled, and saying something about his ' strong 
muscles,' stepped out at the open door, took up a 
very large, heavy ax which lay there by a log of wood, 
and chopped vigorously for a few moments, sending 
the chips flying in all directions; and then, pausing, 
he extended his right arm to its full length, hold- 
ing the ax out horizontally, without quivering." 



MR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN bad the good fortune to 
be trained by a godly mother and stepmother. 
The two books which made the most impression 
upon his character were the Bible and Weems's 
"Life of Washington." The former he read with 
such diligence that he knew it almost by heart, and 
the words of Scripture became so much a part of 
his nature that he rarely made a speech or wrote a 
paper of any length without quoting its language 
or teaching. 

Mr. Arnold, in his "Life of Lincoln," says: "It 
is very strange that any reader of Lincoln's speeches 
and writings should have the hardihood to charge 
him -with a want of religious feeling." In his opin- 
ion " no more reverent Christian than he ever sat 
in the Executive chair, not excepting Washing- 
ton. . . . From the time he left Springfield to 
his death he not only himself continually prayed for 
Divine assistance, but constantly asked the prayers 
of his friends for himself and his country. . . . 
Doubtless, like many others, he passed through 
periods of doubt and perplexity ; but his faith in a 

7 97 



98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Divine providence began at his mother's knee, and 
ran through all the changes of his life. 
When the unbeliever shall convince the people that 
this man, whose life was straightforward, clear, and 
honest, was a sham. and a hypocrite, then, but not 
before, may he make the world doubt his Chris- 
tianity." 

That Mr. Arnold's description of Mr. Lincoln's 
religious character is correct is evidenced by quota- 
tions found in various books on Lincoln. 

In a letter written January 12, 1851, when his 
father was dangerously ill, Mr. Lincoln says : " I 
sincerely hope father may yet recover his health ; 
but, at all events, tell him to remember and call 
upon and confide in our great and good and merci- 
ful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any 
extremity. He will not forget the dying man who 
puts his trust in him. . . . Say to him, if it be 
his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meet- 
ing with loved ones gone before, and where the rest 
of us, through the help of God, hope erelong to 
join him." 

Mr. Lincoln one day said to a lady in whose 

piety he had great confidence : " Mrs. , I have 

formed a high opinion of your Christian character, 
and now, as we are alone, I have a mind to ask you 
to give me, in brief, your idea of what constitutes 
a true religious experience." The lady replied at 



MR. LINCOLN'S BELIGIOUS BELIEF. 99 

some length, statiug in substance that, in her judg- 
ment, it consisted of a conviction of one's own sin- 
fulness and weakness and personal need of the 
Savior for strength and support ; that views of mere 
doctrine might and would differ, but when one was 
really brought to feel his need of Divine help, and 
to seek the aid of the Holy Spirit for strength and 
guidance, it was satisfactory evidence of his having 
been born again. When she had concluded, Mr. 
Lincoln was very thoughtful for a few moments, 
and then said very earnestly : " If what you have 
told me is really a correct view of this great sub- 
ject, I think I can say with sincerity that I hope I 
am a Christian. I had lived until my boy Willie 
died without fully realizing these things. That blow 
overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as 
I had never felt it before ; and if I can take what 
you have statedas a test, I think I can safely say 
that I know something of that change of which you 
speak ; and I will further add that it has been my 
intention for some time, at a suitable opportunity, 
to make a public religious profession." Why he 
never did so is explained by Mr. Arnold, who 
quotes Mr. Deming, a member of Congress from 
Connecticut, as saying that, when asked why, with 
his marked religious character, he did not unite 
with some Church, Lincoln said : " I have never 
united myself with any Church because I found 



100 ABRAHA3I LINCOLN, 

difficulty in giving my assent, without mental res- 
ervation, to the long and complicated statements of 
Christian doctrine which characterize their articles 
of belief and confessions of faith. When any 
Church will inscribe over its altars, as its sole qual- 
ification for membership, the Savior's condensed 
statement of the substance of both law and gospel, 
'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and 
thy neighbor as thyself,' that Church shall I join 
with all my heart and soul." 

James F. Rusling relates in the New York Tribune 
the following impressive utterance, which was made 
in his hearing during Mr. Lincoln's visit to General 
Sickles, who had been wounded at the battle of 
Gettysburg a day or two before. It was Sunday 
morning, July 5, 1863. Mr. Lincoln greeted Sickles 
right cordially and tenderly, though cheerfully, and 
it was easy to see that they held each other in high 
esteem. Greetings over, Mr. Lincoln dropped into 
a chair, and, crossing his prodigious legs, soon fell to 
questioning Sickles as to all the phases of the com- 
bat at Gettysburg. When Mr. Lincoln's inquiries 
seemed ended. General Sickles resumed the conver- 
sation substantially as follows : 

"Well, Mr. President, I beg pardon, but what 
do you think about Gettysburg? What was your 
opinion of things while we were campaigning and 



3IR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 101 

fighting up tliere in Pennsylvania ?" " O," replied 
Mr. Lincoln, "I didn't think much about it. I 
was not much concerned about you !" " You were 
not?" rejoined Mr. Sickles, as amazed. "Why, we 
heard that you Washington folks were a good deal 
excited, and you certainly had good cause to be, for 
it was ' nip and tuck' with us up there a good deal 
of the time!" "Yes, I know that, and I suppose 
some of us were a little ' rattled.' Indeed, some of 
the Cabinet talked of Washington's being captured, 
and ordered a gunboat or two here, and even went 
so far as to send some Government archives aboard, 
and wanted me to go too, but I refused. Stanton 
and Welles, I believe, were both ' stampeded ' some- 
what, and Seward, I reckon, too. But I said, 'No, 
gentlemen, we are all right, and are going to win at 
Gettysburg ;' and we did, right handsomely. No, 
General Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg." 
" Why not, Mr. President ? How was that ? Pretty 
much everybody down here, we heard, was more or 
less panicky." " Yes, I expect, and a good many 
more than will own up now. But actually, General 
Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg, and if you 
really want to know I will tell you why. Of course, 
I do n't want you and Colonel Rusling to say any- 
thing about this — at least, not now. People might 
laugh if it got out, you know. But the fact is, 
in the stress and pinch of the campaign there, I 



102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

went to my room, and got down on my knees and 
prayed Almighty God for victory at Gettysburg. 
I told him that this was his country, and the war 
was his war, but that we really couldn't stand 
another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And 
then and there I made a solemn vow with my Maker 
that if he would stand by you boys at Gettysburg, 
I would stand by him. And he did, and I will! 
And after this, I do n't know how it was, and it is 
not for me to explain, but somehow or other a sweet 
comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had 
taken the whole thing into his own hands, and we 
were bound to win at Gettysburg ! No, General 
Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg; and that is 
the reason w'hy !" 

Mr. Lincoln said all this with great solemnity 
and impressiveness, almost as Moses might have 
spoken when first down from Sinai ; and when he 
had concluded, there was a pause in the talk that 
nobody seemed disposed to break. All were busy 
with their thoughts, and the President especially 
appeared to be cjmmuning with the Infinite One 
again. The first to speak was General Sickles, 
who presently resumed as follows : " Well, Mr. 
President, what are you thinking about Vicksburg, 
nowadays?" " O," answered Mr. Lincoln, very 
gravely. "I don't quite know. Grant is still 
pegging away down there, and making some head- 



31 R. LIXCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 103 

way, I believe. As we used to say out iu Illinois, 
I think ' he will make a spoon or spoil a horn ' be- 
fore he gets through." " So, then, you have no 
fears about Vicksburg, either Mr. President?" 
added General Sickles. " Well, no ; I can 't say that 
I have," replied Mr. Lincoln very soberly. '' The 
fact is — but do n't say anything about this either 
just now — I have been praying to Almighty God 
for Vicksburg also." Of course Mr. Lincoln did 
not then know that Vicksburg had already fallen 
on July 4th. 

Soon after his second election to the Presidency 
it was remarked by one with whom he was convers- 
ing that in all his cares he was daily remembered 
by those who prayed not be heard of men, as no 
man had ever before been remembered. He caught 
at that homely phrase, and said: "Yes, I like that 
phrase, ^not to be heard of men,' and guess it is 
generally true, as you say. At least I have been 
told so, and I have been a good deal helped by 
just that thought." Then he solemnly and slowly 
added : " I should be the most presumptuous block- 
head upon this footstool if I, for one day, thought 
that I could discharge the duties which have come 
upon me since I came into this place without the 
aid and enlightenment of One who is stronger and 
wiser than all others." 

One of Mr. Lincoln's notable religious utterances 



104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

was his reply to a deputation of colored people at 
Baltimore who presented him a Bible. He said: 
*' In regard to the Great Book I have only to say it 
is the best gift which God has ever given man. All 
the good from the Savior of the world is communi- 
cated to us through this Book. But for this Book 
we could not know right from wrong. All those 
things desirable to man are contained in it." Other 
exj^ressions could be given to show the deep religious 
character of Mr. Lincoln. We refer to only three. 
One was the noble reply to the remark of a clergy- 
man that he hoped " the Lord was on our side." 
" I am not concerned about that/' replied Lincoln, 
"for I know that the Lord is always on the side of 
the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer 
that I and this Nation should be on the Lord's 
side." The second was the sentence in his reply to 
the deputation from the Methodist General Confer- 
ence of 1864: "God bless the Methodist Church — 
bless all the Churches — and blessed be God who, 
in this our great trial, giveth us the Churches." 
The last Avas his second inaugural, than which a 
more sublime speech, or one containing more of the 
spirit of Christ and his gospel, was never uttered 
by emperor, king, or ruler, if indeed there be any 
which can compare with it. No unbeliever could 
have written it. 



LINCOLN AND HIS FAMILY. 

"1\ /f R. LINCOLN," says Noah Brooks, one of 
^^^ his secretaries, in his " Life of Lincoln," 
"cared little for the pleasures of the table, and 
seldom partook of any but the plainest and sim- 
plest food, even when a more elaborate repast than 
usual was spread upon the board. Wine was set 
on the table when those who used it were guests; 
but Lincoln only maintained the form of touching 
it. When engrossed with the cares of his office, 
which was almost habitually, he ate irregularly, and 
the family were accustomed to see him come to the 
table or stay away as it suited his convenience. 
Even when his anxious wife had sent to his Cabinet, 
where he was engaged, a tray of food, he was often 
too busy or too abstracted to touch it. And when 
Mrs. Lincoln was away from home, as sometimes 
happened, he neglected his meals altogether, or, as 
he expressed it, ' browsed around,' eating when 
his hunger moved, when and how he could most 
conveniently. His youngest son — ' Tad,' as he 
was called — could bring him out of his working or 

meditative moods more readily than any other 

105 



106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

member of the family. When the LIncolns en- 
tered the White House in 1861, there were three 
sons and no other children. The eldest was Robert, 
eighteen years old ; Willie, a little more than ten ; 
and Thomas, or ' Tad,' then nearly eight years 
old. This little fellow celebrated his eighth birth- 
day in the White House, April 4, 1863. Robert 
was a student in Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., 
when his father became President, and he entered 
Harvard University soon after that time. He was 
graduated subsequently, studied law, and was ap- 
pointed Secretary of AVar several years after his 
father's death, serving under President Garfield and 
President Arthur. 

"Willie, the second son, died in February, 1862, 
during the darkest and most gloomy time of the 
long and oppressive era of the war. Possibly this 
calamity made Lincoln less strict with his youngest 
boy than he should have been. He found it well- 
nigh impossible to deny Tad anything. But the 
little fellow, always a hearty, happy, and lovable 
boy, did not abuse his privileges. He roamed the 
White House at will, a tricksy and restless spirit, 
as well known to habitual visitors as the President 
himself. Innumerable stories might be told of the 
child's native wit, his courage, his adventurousness, 
and his passionate devotion to his father. He in- 
vaded Cabinet councils with his boyish grief or tales 



LINCOLN AND HIS FA MIL Y. 107 

of adventure, climbed on his father's lap when the 
President was engaged with affairs of state, and 
doubtless diverted and soothed the troubled mind 
of the President, who loved his boy with a certain 
tenderness that was inexpressible. It was Tad, the 
mercurial and irrepressible boy of the White House, 
on friendly terms with the great and the lowly, who 
gave to the Executive mansion almost the only joy- 
ous note that echoed through its corridors and 
stately drawing-rooms in those troublous times. 
The boy survived his father, dying at the age of 
eighteen years, after the family had left Wash- 
ington. 

" The President and Mrs. Lincoln usually ad- 
dressed each other in the old-fashioned manner as 
' Father ' and ' Mother,' and it was very seldom 
that Mrs. Lincoln spoke of her husband as 'the 
President.' And Lincoln, on his part, never, if he 
could avoid it, spoke of himself as President. If 
he had occasion to refer to his high office he spoke 
of it as ' this place.' When the occasion required, 
however, his native dignity asserted itself, and a 
certain simple and yet influential grandeur was 
manifested in his deportment and demeanor. One 
soon forgot in his immediate presence the native 
ungainliness of his figure, and felt that he was in 
the personal atmosphere of one of the world's great 
men. Although Lincoln was genial and free in his 



108 ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 

manner, even with strangers, there was something 
in his bearing that forbade familiarity. INIuch has 
been said about his disregard for dress aud per- 
sonal appearance, but much of this is erroneous. 
He was neat in his person, scrupulously so, and his 
garb was that of a gentleman always. If, in the 
seclusion of his home, he was called out late at 
night to hear an important message, or decide in- 
stantly an affair of great moment, he did not Mait 
to array himself; something was excused to his pre- 
occupation and anxiety." 



DEATH OF LINCOLN. 

FRIDAY, April 14, 1865, was the most exciting 
day to the people of the North since the clay, 
April 12, 1861, just four years before, when the first 
shot of the war had been fired at Fort Sumter, in 
Charleston harbor. Lee had surrendered to Grant 
five days before, and the people were celebrating 
the end of the war. Ev^erybody was happy, and 
when Mr. Lincoln and his wife took a carriage- 
ride in the afternoon, they were greeted everywhere 
with demonstrations of patriotic affection. 

Mr, Lincoln was happy, too, and to his wife he 
said : " Mary, God has been very good to us. 
When these four years are over, we will go back to 
Illinois, and I will be a country lawyer." 

In the evening, Mr. Lincoln, with his wife, at- 
tended Ford's Theater to witness Miss Laura 
Keene's play of " Our American Cousin." As the 
curtain rose for the second scene of the last act, a 
pistol-shot was heard. Immediately following, a man 

was seen to leap from the President's box, and fall 

109 



1 10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 

upon the stage. Rising, he flourished a knife 
which he had drawn, and shouted : 

" Sic semper tyrannis ! The South is avenged!" 

It was John Wilkes Booth. He had sliot the 
President. Mr. Lincoln was carried, unconscious, 
to a small house across the street, where he died 
the next morning. As his spirit took its flight, 
Secretary Stanton, standing by the bedside, said : 
" Now he belongs to the ages." 

Saturday, April loth, was one of the most dread- 
ful days in American history. Many men, who the 
day before were like children in their joy, appeared 
to have been turned into fiends. 

No one knew what the asasssi nation of the Presi- 
dent and the attack on the Secretary of State might 
portend. Some feared that England would take 
advantage of it, and revive the war by recognizing 
the Southern Confederacy. A spirit of riot was in 
the air. An impromptu indignation meeting was 
held in Wall Street, New York, and an excited 
mob had started toward the office of the Dally 
World, bent on its destruction, when its attention 
was arrested by a young man standing on the bal- 
cony of the Board of Trade, and waving a small 
flag. He held in the other hand a telegram. Be- 
fore reading it, however, he lifted his right ami 
and in a loud and clear voice, said : 

" Fellow-citizens ! Clouds and darkness are 



DEATH OF LINCOLN. HI 

round about him! His pavilion is dark waters 
and thick clouds of the skies ! Justice and judg- 
ment are the establishment of his throne ! Mercy 
and truth shall go before his face ! Fellow-citi- 
zens ! God reigns, and the Government at Wash- 
ington still lives !" 

The passions of the mob were instantly stilled. 
Then came the question: "Who is he?" and the 
answer : " General Garfield, of Ohio." 

The funeral services were held in the East Room 
of the White House. The Scriptures were read by 
Rev. Dr. Hale, of the Episcopal Church. The 
opening prayer was offered by Bishop Simpson, of 
the Me'thodist Episcopal Church. The funeral ad- 
dress was delivered by Rev. Dr. Gurley, of the 
Presbyterian Church, which Mr. Lincoln and his 
family had attended. The closing prayer was offered 
by Rev. Dr. Gray, of the Baptist Church, chaplain 
of the Senate. At the close, a regiment of colored 
soldiers escorted the body to the Capitol, where the 
exercises were completed, and the remains lay in 
state until the next day. Memorial services were 
held throughout the country, in many cities a 
funeral procession being a feature. 

April 25th the funeral train left Washington for 
the President's Western home, which was to be his 
final resting-place. Everywhere it was received 
with demonstrations of grief and love. 



112 ABRAHA M LINCOLN: 

The remains reached Springfield, 111., May 3d. 
As the coffin was borne to the hearse, a choir of 
two hundred and fifty voices sang the familiar hymn, 

" Children of the Heavenly King." 

The religious exercises at the cemetery were pro- 
foundly impressive. Bishop Simpson, one of Mr. 
Lincoln's most intimate personal friends, delivered 
an eloquent address, after which was read the de- 
parted President's second Inaugural Address, which 
the London Spectator declared to be " the noblest 
political document known to history." 



LINCOLN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.*' 

I WAS born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, 
Kentucky. My parents were both born in Vir- 
ginia, of undistinguished families — second families, 
perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my 
tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, 
some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in 
Macon Counties, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, 
Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham 

* Concerning Mr. Lincoln's autobiography, we have the 
followiug interesting particulars from a statement made by jMr. 
Jesse "W. Fell, of Normal, 111., in 1872 : " In the autumn of 
1858, during the celebrated discussion between Senator 
Douglas and Mr. Lincoln, I had occasion to travel in the 
Middle and Eastern States, and finding there a laudable curi- 
osity to learn something more of the latter than was then 
generally known, and looking, too, to the possibilities of his 
becoming an available candidate for the Presidency in 1860, 
I applied to him for a brief history of his early Hfe. After 
repeated efforts on my part, in December, 1859, he placed in 
my hands a manuscript, of which the following is a copy in 
facsimile, written with that freedom and unreserve which one 
friend would exercise in talking to another, and in which hia 
peculiar conversational style is so happily set forth. I need 
scarcely add that this simple, unadorned statement of hia 
was not intended for publication, but merely to give a few 
facts relating to his early history." 
113 



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A UTO BIOGRAPHY. 115 

County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or '82, 
where, a year or two later, he was killed by In- 
dians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he 'was 
laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ances- 
tors, who M'ere Quakers, went to Virginia from 
Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify 
them with the New England family of the same 
name, ended in nothing more definite than a simi- 
larity of Christian names in both families, such as 
Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and 
the like. 

My father, at the death of his father, was but 
six years of age ; and he grew up literally without 
education. He removed from Kentucky to what 
is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. 
AYe reached our new home about the time the State 
came into the Union. It was a wild region, with 
many bears and other wild animals still in the 
woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, 
so-called, but no qualification was ever required of 
a teacher beyond " 7'eadin\ W7'itin\ and cipherin' " 
to the Rule of Three. If a straggler, supposed to 
understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neigh- 
borhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There 
was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for educa- 
tion. Of course, when I came of age, I did not 
know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write. 



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A UTOBIOGRA PJl Y, 117 

and cipher to the Rule of Three, but that was all. 
I have not been to school since. The little advance 
I now have npon this store of education, I have 
picked up, from time to time, under the pressure of 
necessity. 

I was raised to farm-work, which I continued 
till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to 
Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon County. 
Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sanga- 
mon, now in Menard County, where I remained a 
year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the 
Black Hawk War, and I was elected a captain of 
volunteers — a success which gave me more pleasure 
than any I have had since. I went into the 
campaign, was elected ; ran for the Legislature the 
same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I 
ever have been beaten by the people. The next, and 
three succeeding biennial elections, I was elected to 
the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterwards. 
During this legislative period I had studied law, and 
removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1841 I was 
once elected to the Lower House of Congress — was 
not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, 
both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than 
ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and gen- 
erally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active 
canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when 



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AUTOBIOGRAPHY. HiJ 

the repeal of the Missouri Comf)romise aroused me 
again. What I have doue since then is pretty well 
known. 

If any j)ersonal description of me is thought de- 
sirable, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet four 
inches, nearly ; lean in flesh, weighing, on an aver- 
age, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark-com- 
plexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes; no 
other marks or brands recollected. 

Yours very truly, A. Lincoln. 

Hon. J. W. Fell. 



LINCOLNIANA. 



LINCOLNIANA. 



MR. LINCOLN'S CONSIDERATION FOR HIS POOR RELATIVES. 
"One of tbe most beautiful traits of Mr. Lincoln," 
says Mr. J. B. McClure, "was his considerate regard for 
the poor and obscure relatives he had left, plodding along 
in their humble ways of life. Wherever upon his circuit 
be found them, be always went to their dwellings, ate 
Tvitb them, and, wben convenient, made their bouses his 
borne. He never assumed in their presence tbe slight- 
est superiority to them in tbe facts and conditions of 
his life. He gave them money when they needed and 
he possessed it. Countless times be was known to leave 
bis companions at tbe village hotel, after a bard day's 
work in tbe court-room, and spend tbe evening with 
these old friends and companions of bis bumbler days. 
On one occasion, wben urged not to go, be replied : 
' Why, aunt's heart would be broken if I should leave 
town without calling upon her;' yet be was obliged to 
walk several miles to make the call." 

SALLIE WARD'S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
When the telegram from Cumberland Gap reached 
Mr. Lincoln "that firing was beard in tbe direction of 
Knoxville," be remarked that be "was glad of it.^" 
Some person present, wbo bad tbe perils of Burnside's 
position uppermost in his miud, could not see why Mr. 
Lincoln should be glad of it, and so expressed himsel\ 

123 



124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

'* Why, you see," respoutled the President, "it re 
minds me of Mrs. Sallie Ward, a neighbor of mine> 
who had a very large family. Occasionally one of her 
numerous progeny would be heard crying in some out- 
of the-way place, upon which Mrs. Ward would exclaim : 
' There 's one of my children that is n't dead yet.' " 



PILOTING A FLAT-BOAT OVER A MILL-DAM. 
W. T. Greene states that the first time he ever saw 
Mr. Lincoln he was in the Sangamon River with his 
trousers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to pilot 
a flat-boat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of 
water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the 
j)row over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the 
water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and 
let it run out. This was a forcible illustration of Mr. 
Lincoln's fertility of resources for times of need. 
.+ 

LINCOLN'S WEDDING-SUIT. 
One of the greatest trials of Mr. Lincoln's patience 
occurred in connection with his wedding. When he gave 
his order for his wedding-suit, his tailor, Mr. A. S. 
Thompson, regarded it as a joke, and paid no attention 
to the matter. On the morning of the wedding-day 
Mr. Lincoln sent for his suit, and was surprised to learn 
that work upon it had not begun. Mr. Thompson at 
once put all the force possible upon it, and when in the 
evening a messenger came for the suit, it was still un- 
finished. Mr. Lincoln was obliged to wait, with his 
characteristic patience, partially robed, for an hour, when 
the boy arrived with the important package. 



LINCOLNIANA. 125 



MR. LINCOLN'S " FRIEND MARY." 
Among the most interesting of Mr. Lincoln's per- 
sonal letters is one addressed to Miss Mary S. Owens, to 
whom he seems at one time to have proposed marriage. 
It is dated Springfield, May 7, 1839, and is addressed 
" Friend Mary." In it he says: 

" This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull 
business after all. At least it is so to me. I am quite 
as lonesome here as I ever was anywhere in my life. I 
have been spoken to by but one woman since I have 
been here, and should not have been by her if she 
could have avoided it. I have never been to church 
yet, and probably shall not be soon. I stay away be- 
cause I am conscious I should not know how to behave 
myself. I have been thinking of what we said about 
your coming to live at Springfield. I am afraid you 
would not be satisfied. There is a great deal of flour- 
ishing about in carriages here, which it would be your 
doom to see without sharing it. You would have to be 
poor without the means of hiding your poverty. Do 
you believe you could bear that patiently ? Whatever 
woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do 
so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her 
happy and contented ; and there is nothing I could 
imagine that would make me more unhappy than to 
fail in the efFort. I know I should be much happier 
with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of 
discontent in you. What you have said to me may have 
been in the way of jest, or I may have misunderstood 
it. If so, then, let it be forgotten; if otherwise, I much 
wish you would think seriously before you decide. 



126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 

What I have said I will most positively abide by, pro- 
vided you wish it. My opinion is that you had better 
not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, 
and it may be more severe than you now imagine, I 
know you are capable of thinking correctly on any sub- 
ject, and if you deliberate maturely upon this before 
you decide, then I am willing to abide your decision." 

Mr. Lincoln, in a letter addressed to Mrs. O. H. 
Browning, dated Springfield, April 1, 1838, appears, 
without naming the lady, to explain how he came to 
propose marriage to Miss Owens, and says: "It was, 
then, in the autumn of 1836 that a married lady of my 
acquaintance, who was a great friend of mine, being 
about to pay a visit to her father and other relatives re- 
siding in Kentucky, proposed to me that on her return 
she would bring a sister of hers with her, on condition 
that I would engage to become her brother-in-law with 
all convenient dispatch. I, of course, accepted the pro- 
posal, for you know I could not have done otherwise 
had I really been averse to it." After he met the lady 
he seems not to have been well pleased, and would 
gladly have withdrawn his promise, but felt in duty 
bound to adhere to it. It seems to have given him 
great distress for a while, but he had made up his mind 
to marry the lady, and be a devoted husband. In this 
closing letter he says : 

"After all my sufferings upon this deeply interesting 
subject, here I am, wholly, unexpectedly, completely 
out of the ' scrape,' and I now want to know if you can 
guess how I got out of it — out, clear in every sense of 
the term — no violation of word, honor, or conscience. 
I don't believe you can guess, and so I might as well 



LINCCLNIANA. 127 

tell you at once. As the lawyer says, it was duue in 
the manner following, to Avit : After I had delayed the 
matter as long as I thought I could in honor do (which, 
by the way, had brought me round into the last fall), I 
concluded I might as well bring it to a consummation 
without further delay, and so I mustered my resolution 
and made the proposal to her direct ; but, shocking to 
relate, she answered no. At first I supposed she did it 
through an affectation of modesty, which I thought ill 
became her under the peculiar circumstances of her 
case, but on my renewal of the charge I found she re- 
pelled it with greater firmness than before. I tried it 
again and again, but with the same success, or rather 
the same want of success. I finally was forced to give 
it up, at wliich I very unexpectedly found myself morti- 
fied almost beyond endurance. . . . And, to cap 
the whole, I then, for the first time, began to suspect 
that I was really a little in love with her. But let it all 
go ! I 'II try and outlive it. Others have been made 
fools of by the girls, but this can never with truth be 
said of me. I most emphatically in this instance made 
a fool of myself." 

=4" 

LINCOLN'S TRIBUTE TO THE BIBLE. 

To Joshua Speed, his intimate personal friend, Mr. 
Lincoln said at the Soldiers' Home, near Washington, 
about a year before his death : 

" I am profitably engaged reading the Bible. Take 
all of this book upon reason that you can, and the 
balance on faith, and you will live and die a better 



128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN^ 

MR. LINCOLN'S TALL HAT. 

One of the noteworthy characteristics of Mr. Lincoln 
was his tall hat. Alter his election, as if not content 
with his six feet four or five inches of gaunt stature, he 
had his historic hat made fully a foot high, with a brim 
almost as big as a southern sombrero. It was a com- 
bination of all styles then in existence, and in this re- 
spect it reflected his own early experience in having 
been a store keeper, soldier, surveyor, and finally a 
solicitor. It was a veritable "joint of stovepipe," and 
its remarkable and romantic brim made it alike service- 
able in rain or shine. Representative Springer, who 
hails from Lincoln's old home, in speaking of the hat, 
said : " Mr. Lincoln's high hat was the most indispen- 
sable thing of his whole outfit. In it he carried all his 
valuable papers. In fact, it was a sort of file-rack. 
Here were all the briefs of his various law cases. Cu- 
riously enough, he carried the accounts in his head, and 
that is why he lost so much money. Had he reversed 
the process, and kept his accounts in his hat and the 
cases in his head, he would have been better off. His 
hat served for his satchel on a journey, and all that was 
needed besides this were his saddle-bags and his horse. 
It was large and capacious, and a great many documents 
and data could be crowded into it without seriously dis- 
commoding the wearer." 

When Mr. Lincoln was postmaster at New Salem, 
his hat was a most important part of his office equip" 
ment. As soon as the mail was received each day, the 
young postmaster would put the letters in his hat and 
take a stroll through the village. The villagers knew 



LINCOLNIANA. 129 

that he was a peripatetic post-office, and, of course, 
everybody was anxious to know the contents of the hat, 
which seemed to promise as much to them as a hat in 
the hands of a sleight-of-hand performer. 



LINCOLN'S STORY OF A NEW SALEM GIRL 

Among the numerous delegations which visited the 
President was one from New York, which urged very 
strenuously the sending of a fleet to the Southern coast 
cities with the object of drawing the rebel army from 
Washington. 

Mr. Lincoln said the object reminded him of the case 
of a girl in New Salem, who was greatly troubled with 
a "singing" in her head. Various remedies were sug- 
gested by the neighbors, but nothing tried afforded any 
relief. At last a man came along — "a common-sense 
sort of man," said Lincoln, inclining his head toward 
the gentleman complimentarily — who was asked to pre- 
scribe for the difficulty. After due inquiry and exam- 
ination, he said the cure was very simple. 

"What is it?" was the question. 

" Make a plaster of psalm-tunes, and apply to her 
feet, and draw the 'singing' doivn," was the reply. 



-§•- 



CARING FOR A DRUNKARD. 

An exhibition of Lincoln's practical humanity oc- 
curred while a boy. One evening, while returning from 
a " raising" with a number of companions, he discovered 
a straying horse, with saddle and bridle upon him. The 
hor.se was recognized as belonging to a well-known 

9 



1 30 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 

drunkard, and it was suspected that the owner was not 
far off. The fellow was found in a perfectly helpless 
condition, upon the cold ground. Lincoln's companions 
intended to leave him to his fate, but young Lincoln 
would not hear to it. At his demand, the miserable 
man was lifted to his shoulders, and he actually carried 
him eighty rods to the nearest house. He then sent 
word to his father that he would not be back that night. 
He nursed the man until the morning, and believed that 
he had saved his life. 



LINCOLN'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN THE SUPREME COURT. 

Mr. Lincoln's conduct in the presentation of his 
first case before the Supreme Court illustrates his high 
sense of justice and duty. He addressed the court as 
follows : 

"Your Honor, — This is the first case I have ever 
had in this court, and I have examined it with great 
care. As the court will perceive by looking at the ab- 
stract of the record, the only question in the case is one 
of authority. I have not been able to find any author- 
ity sustaining my side of the case, but I have found sev- 
eral cases directly in point on the other side. I will now 
give the citations, and then submit the case." 

• •*= 

"THE AGE IS NOT DEAD." 

One of Mr. Lincoln's most interesting speeches was 
delivered in the court-house at Springfield, 111., in 1855, 
to an audience of three persons. Mr. Herndon had 
endeavored to secure a large audience by the use of 
huge posters, and the parade of a brass baud, and the 



LINCOLNIA NA. 131 

ringing of bells. The address, as announced, was to be 
on the subject of slavery. Mr. Lincoln spoke as 
follows : 

" Gentlemen, — This meeting is larger than I knew 
it would be, as I knew Herndon [Lincoln's partner] and 
myself would come, but I did not know that anyone else 
would be here; and yet another has come — you, John 
Paine [the janitor]. 

"These are bad times, and seem out of joint. All 
seems dead, dead, dead; but the age is not yet dead ; 
it liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all this 
seeming want of life and motion, the world does move 
nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn and 
appeal to the people." 

oA. 

THREATENS AGITATION IN ILLINOIS. 

One afternoon an old negro woman came into the 
office of Lincoln & Herndon, in Springfield, and told 
the story of her trouble, to which both lawyers listened. 
It appeared that she and her offspring were born slaves 
in Kentucky, and that her owner, one Hinkle, had 
brought the whole family into Illinois and given them 
their freedom. Her son had gone down the Mississippi 
as a waiter or deck-hand on a steamboat. Arriving at 
New Orleans, he had imprudently gone ashore, and had 
been snatched up by the police, in accordance with the 
law then in force concerning free negroes from other 
States, and thrown into confinement. Subsequently he 
was brought out and tried. Of course he was fined, 
and, the boat having left, he was sold, or was in imme- 
diate danger of being sold, to pay his fine and the 
expenses. 



132 A BR AH A M LINCOL JV. 

Mr. Lincoln was very much moved, and requested 
Mr. Herndon to go over to the State-house, and inquire 
of Governor Bissell if there was not something he could 
do to obtain possession of the negro. Mr. Herndon 
made the inquiry, and returned with the report that the 
governor regretted to say that he had no legal or con- 
stitutional right to do anything in the premises. Mr. 
Lincoln rose to his feet in great excitement, and ex- 
claimed : " By the Almighty, I '11 have that negro back 
soon, or I'll have a twenty-years' agitation in Illinois, 
until the governor does have a legal and constitutional 
right to do something in the premises." 

He was saved from the latter alternative — at least, 
in the direct form which he proposed. The lawyers 
sent money to a New Orleans correspondent — money of 
their own — who procured the negro, and returned him 
to his mother. 

■ •*• 

LINCOLN'S LETTER TO HIS STEPBROTHER. 

Springfield, January 12, 1851. 
Dear Brother, — On the day before yesterday, I 
received a letter from Harriet, written at Greenup. 
She says she has just returned from your house, and 
that father is very low, and will hardly recover. She 
also says that you have written me two letters, and that, 
although you do not expect me to come now, you won- 
der that I do not write. I received both your letters, 
and, although I have not answered them, it is not be- 
cause I have forgotten them, or been uninterested about 
them, but because it appeared to me I could write 
nothing which could do any good. You already know 
I desire that neither father nor mother shall be in want 



LINCOLNIANA. 133 

of any comfort, either in health or sickness, while they 
live; and I feel sure you have not failed to use my 
name, if necessary, to procure a doctor, or anything else 
for father in his present sickness. My business is such 
that I could hardly leave home now, if it was not as it 
is, that my own wife is sick abed. I sincerely hope 
father may yet recover his health ; but, at all events, 
tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our 
great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn 
away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of 
a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and he 
will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him. 
Say to him that if we could meet now it is doubtful 
whether it would not be more painful than pleasant; but 
that, if it be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joy- 
ous meeting with many loved ones gone before, and 
where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope 
erelong to join them. 

Write to me again when you receive this. 

Afiectionately, A. Lincoln. 

BEATEN IN A HORSE-TRADE. 

At one time Lincoln and a judge were bantering 
one another about trading horses, and it was agreed that 
the next morning at nine o'clock they should make a 
trade, and there was to be no backing out, under pen- 
alty of twenty-five dollars. 

At the hour appointed the judge came up, leading 
the sorriest looking specimen of a horse ever seen in 
those parts. In a few minutes Mr. Lincoln was seen 
approaching, with a wooden saw-horse upon his shoul- 
ders. Great were the shouts and the laughter of the 



134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

crowd, and both were greatly increased when Mr. Lin- 
coln, on surveying the judge's animal, set down his saw- 
horse, and exclaimed : 

"Well, Judge, this is the first time I ever got the 
worst of it in a horse-trade." 



TRiBUTE TO LINCOLN'S HOMELINESS. 

It is said that Lincoln was always ready to join in a 
laugh at his own expense. He used to tell the follow- 
ing story with great glee : 

"In the days when I used to be on the circuit," said 
he, " I was accosted on the cars by a stranger who said: 

" 'Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my pos- 
session which belongs to you.' 

" 'How is that?' I asked, considerably astonished. 

"The stranger took a jack-knife from his pocket. 
' This knife,' said he, ' was placed in my hands some 
years ago, with the injunction that I was to keep it until 
I found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it 
from that time to this. Allow me to say, sir, that I 
think you are fairly entitled to the property.'" 



ACCOUNTS WITH PARTNERS. 

Lincoln always had a partner in his professional 
life, and when he went out upon the circuit, the partner 
usually remained at home. While out, says Mr. J. B. 
IMcClure, he frequently took up and disposed of cases 
that were never entered at the office. In these cases, 
after receiving his fees, he divided the money in his 
pocket-book, labeling each sum (wrapped in a piece of 
paper), that belonged to his partner, stating his name 



LINCOLNIANA. 135 

and the case on which it was received. He could not 
be content to keep an account. He divided the money, 
so that if he, by any accident, should fail to pay it over, 
there could be no dispute as to the exact amount that 
was his partner's due. 



FAIR DEALING WITH CLIENTS. 

Lincoln did not make his profession lucrative to 
himself. To a poor client he was quite as apt to give 
money as to take it from him. He never encouraged 
the spirit of litigation. One of his clients says that he 
went to Lincoln with a case to prosecute, and that 
Lincoln refused to have anything to do with it because 
he was not strictly in the right. "You can give the 
other party a great deal of trouble," he said, " and per- 
haps beat him; but you had better let the suit alone." 

About the time Lincoln came to be known as a suc- 
cessful lawyer, he was waited upon by a lady who held 
a real estate claim which she wished him to prosecute, 
putting into his hands, with the papers, a check for 
two hundred and fifty dollars as a retaining fee. Lin- 
coln promised to look the case over, and asked her to 
call again next day. When presenting herself, Lincoln 
told her that he had gone through the papers very 
carefully, and he must tell her frankly that there was 
not a "peg" to hang her claim upon, and he could not 
conscientiously advise her to bring the action. The lady 
was satisfied, and, thanking him, rose to go. 

"Wait," said Lincoln, fumbling in his vest pocket, 
"here is the check you left with me." 

"But, Mr. Lincoln," returned the lady," I think you 
have earned that." 



1 36 ABRAHAM LINCOLK 



"No, uo," he responded, handing it back to her; 
"that would not be right. I can't take pay for doing 

my duty." 

.*. 

A SMALL CROP. 

Senator McDonald states that he saw a jury trial 
in Illinois, at which Lincoln defended an old man 
charged with assault and battery. No blood had been 
spilled, but there was malice in the prosecution, and the 
chief witness was eager to make the most of it. On 
cross-examination, Lincoln asked him how long the fight 
lasted and how much ground it covered. The witness 
thought the fight must have lasted half an hour, and 
covered an acre of ground. Lincoln called his attention 
to the fact that nobody was hurt, and then, with an in- 
imitable air, asked him if he didn't think it was "a 
mighty small crop for an acre of ground." The jury re- 
jected the case with contempt, as beneath the dignity of 
a court. 



MR. LOGAN'S "BOSOM SHIRT." 

Two FARMERS, who had a misunderstanding about 
a horse-trade, went to law, employing Lincoln and his 
partner on the opposite sides. On the day of the trial, 
Logan, having bought a new shirt, open in the back, 
with a huge standing collar, dressed himself in extreme 
haste, and put on the shirt with the bosom at the back, 
a linen coat concealing the blunder. He dazed the jury 
with his knowledge of "horse points," and, as the day 
was sultry, took off his coat and concluded his speech in 
his shirt sleeves. 

Lincoln, sitting behind him, took in the situation, 



LIN-COLNIANA. l*'^^ 

and, when his turn to speak came, remarked to the 

jury: , . n 

-Gentlemen, Mr. Logan has been trymg, for more 

than an hour, to make you believe he knows more about 
a horse than these honest farmers who are witnesses 
He has quoted largely from his ' horse-doctor.' And 
now, gentlemen, I submit to you [here he lifted Logan 
out of the chair, and turned him with his back to the 
iury and the crowd, at the same time turning up the 
enormous standing collar,] what dependence can you 
place in his horse knowledge, when he does n t know 
enough to put on his shirt?" 

The roars of laughter that greeted his exhibition, 
and the verdict that Lincoln got soon after, gave Logan 
a permanent prejudice against "bosom shirts." 



DEFENDING COLONEL BAKER. 
On one occasion, when Colonel Baker was speaking 
in a court-house which had been a storehouse, and, on 
making some remarks that were offensive to certain po- 
litical rowdies in the crowd, they cried: "Take him oft 
the stand." Confusion ensued, and an attempt was 
made to carry the demand into execution. Directly 
over the speaker's head was an old scuttle, at which 
Lincoln had been listening to the speech. In an mstant 
Lincoln's feet came through the scuttle, and he was soon 
standing by Colonel Baker's side. He raised his hand; 
the assembly subsided immediately into silence. 

" Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, " let us not disgrace 
the age and country in which we live. This is a land 
Where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has 



138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. 
I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him 
from this stand if I can prevent it." 

His perfect calmness and fairness, and the knowledge 
that he would do what he had promised to do, quieted 
all disturbance, and the speaker went on with his re- 
marks. 

MR. LINCOLN'S POEM. 

The following poem was written by Mr. Lincoln 
when he was about thirty-five years old. The occasion 
was a visit to the neighborhood of his old Indiana home 
to make a political speech in behalf of Henry Clay : 

" My childhood's home I see again, 
And sadden with the view ; 
An<l still, as memory crowds my brain, 
There 's pleasure in it, too. 

memory ! thou midway world 

'Twixt earth and paradise. 
Where things decayed, and loved ones lost, 

In dreamy shadows rise ; 

And, freed from all that 's earthly vile. 

Seem hallowed, pure, and bright. 
Like scenes in some enchanted isle, 

All bathed in liquid light. 

As dusk}' mountains please the eye, 

AVhen twilight chases day; 
As bugle notes that, passing by. 

In distance die away; 

As leaving some grand waterfall, 

We, lingering, list its roar ; 
So memory will hallow all 

We 've known, but know no more. 



LINCOLNIANA. 139 

Near twenty years have passed away, 

Since here I bid farewell 
To w-oods and fields, and scenes of play, 

And playmates loved so well ; 

Where many were, but few remain, 

Of old familiar things ; 
But seeing them to mind again 

The lost and absent brings. 

The friends I left that parting day, 

How changed ! as time has sped ; 
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray. 

And half of all are dead. 

I hear the loud survivors tell 

How naught from death could save, 
Till every sound appears a knell, 

And every spot a grave. 

I range the fields with pensive tread, 

And pace the hollow rooms. 
And feel (companion of the dead), 

I 'm living in the tombs." 
■<«.' 



LINCOLN AND THE PIG. 

An amusing incident occurred while Lincoln was 
riding the circuit. As he was passing a deep slough, to 
his exceeding distress he saw a pig struggling in vain to 
extricate himself from the mud. Lincoln looked at the 
pig and the mud which enveloped him, and then at his 
own new clothes, which he had purchased but a short 
time before. Deciding against the claims of the pig, he 
rode on ; but he could not get rid of the vision of the 
poor brute. At last, after riding several miles, he turned 
back, determined to release the animal, even at the ex- 
pense of his new suit. Arriving at the spot, he tied 



140 A£IiAHA^f LINCOLN. 

his horse, ami, with considerable difficulty, succeeded 
in rescuing the pig from its predicament. Then he 
washed his hands in the nearest brook, remounted his 
horse, and rode on. He then began to inquire as to 
the motive that sent him back to release the pig. He 
at first thought it pure benevolence, but finally came to 
the conclusion that it was selfishness, for he said to him- 
self that he went to the jiig's relief in order to " take 
a pain out of his own mind." 



BLAINE'S PREDICTION. 

In the famous Douglas-Lincoln campaign, in 1858, 
Mr. Blaine reported the speeches and the incidents of 
the canvass for a Philadelphia newspaper. In his last 
letter before the election he wrote: "The State will go 
for Douglas. He will be elected senator ; but Lincoln 
will be the next President." The prediction was ridi- 
culed. Two years later he was present when the com- 
mittee informed Mr. Lincoln of his nomination, and was 
gratified to hear the future War President say, as he took 
out a printed slip containing the prophecy: "Young 
man, you see that I have kept your prediction." 



GENEROSITY TO A CLIENT. 

A Mr. Cogdal met with a financial wreck in 1843. 
He employed Lincoln as his lawyer, and, at the close of 
the business, gave him a note to cover the regular law- 
yer's fees. He soon afterwards lost his hand by an acci- 
dental discharge of powder. Meeting Lincoln after the 
accident, the lawyer asked how he was getting along. 



LINCOLNIANA. 141 

"Badly enough," replied Mr. Cogdal, "I am both 
broken up in business and crippled." Then he added: 
" I have been thinking about that note of yours." 

Lincoln took out his pocket-book, and saying, with 
a laugh, " Well, you need n't think any more about it," 
handed him the note. 

Mr. Cogdal protested; but Lincoln said, " If you 
had the money, I would not take it," and hurried away. 



A SURPRISED ENGLISHMAN. 

As IS usually the case, some of Mr. Lincoln's neigh- 
bors did not look upon him as a great man. One of 
them, an Englishman, upon hearing of his nomination 
by the Chicago Convention, exclaimed : 

"What! Abe Lincoln nominated for President of 
the United States ! Can it be possible ? A man that 
buys a ten-cent beefsteak for breakfast, and carries it 

home himself!" 

'^ 

LINCOLN'S KINDNESS TO BIRDS. 

The following incident is related by one who knew 
Lincoln, and who, at the time of the incident, was his 
fallow-traveler : 

"We passed through a thicket of wild-plum and 
crab-apple trees, and stopped to water our horses. One 
of the party came up alone, and we inquired : ' Where 
is Lincoln ?' 

" ' O,' he replied, 'when I saw him last he had 
caught two young birds which the wind had blown out 
of their nest, and he was hunting for the nest, that he 
might put them back in it.' 



142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"In a short tirae Lincoln came up, having found the 
nest and restored the birds. The party laughed at his 
care of the young birds; but Lincoln said: 'I could 
not have slept to-night if I had not restored those little 
birds to their mother.'" 

LINCOLN'S NEW HAT. 

Mr. G. B. Lincoln tells of an amusing circum- 
stance which took place at Springfield, soon after Mr. 
Lincoln's nomination in 1860. A hatter in Brooklyn 
secretly obtained the size of the future President's head, 
and made for him a very elegant hat, which he sent by 
his townsman, G. B. Lincoln, to Springfield. About 
the time it was presented, various other testimonials of 
a similar character had come in from different sections. 
Mr. Lincoln took the hat, and, after admiring its texture 
and workmanship, put it on his head and walked up to 
a looking-glass. Glancing from the reflection to Mrs. 
Lincoln, he said, with his peculiar twinkle of the eye: 

" Well, wife, there is one thing likely to come out of 

this scrape, anyhow. We are going to have some new 

clothes /" 

.+, 

LINCOLN'S LOVE FOR CHILDREN. 

Soon after his election as President, and while vis- 
iting Chicago, one evening at a social gathering Mr. 
Lincoln saw a little girl timidly approaching him. He 
at once called her to him, and asked what she wished. 

She replied that she wanted his name. 

Mr. Lincoln looked back into the room and said: 
"But here are other little girls; they would feel badly 
if I should give my name only to you." 



LINCOLXIANA. 



143 



The little girl replied that there were eight of them 

in all. 

"Then," said Mr. Liucolu, "get me eight sheets of 
paper, and a pen and ink, and I will see what I can do 

for you." 

The paper was brought, and Mr. Lincoln sat down 
in the crowded drawing-room, and wrote a sentence 
upon each sheet, appending his name; and thus every 
little girl carried off her souvenir. 

During the same visit, and while giving a reception 
at one of the hotels, a fond father took in a little boy 
by the hand, who was anxious to see the new President. 
The moment the child entered the parlor door he, of 
his own accord, and quite to the surprise of his father, 
took off his hat, and, giving it a swing, cried : 
"Hurrah for Lincoln!" 

There was a crowd; but, as soon as Mr. Lincoln 
could get hold of the little fellow, he lifted him in his 
hands, and, tossing him toward the ceiling, laughingly 
shouted : 

"Hurrah for you!" 



ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN. 
After Mr. Lincoln's speech at Leavenworth, Kan- 
sas in the winter of 1859, Mr. Lincoln and friends, 
among whom was Captain J. K Fitch, of Evanston 
111 then a young man, were invited to the home of 
Judge Delahay, where Mr. Lincoln was entertamed. 
The refreshments included wine, of which almost every 
one except Mr. Lincoln partook. 

"The next day," says Captain Fitch, in the Norih- 



144 ABRAHAM L TNCOLN. 

western Christian Advocate, " we escorted him back to the 
train ; and, to my dying day, I shall never forget our 
parting. I was only twenty-two years old. Mr. Lin- 
coln bade each one good-bye, and gave each a hearty 
grasp of the hand. He bade me good-bye last, and, as 
he took my hand in both of his, and stood there tower- 
ing above me, he looked down into my eyes with that 
sad, kindly look of his, and said : 

"'My young friend, do not put an enemy in your 
mouth to steal away your brains.'" 



MR. LINCOLN'S MODESTY. 

In a letter to T. J. Pickett, dated April 16, 1859, 
Mr. Lincoln wrote: "As to the other matter which 
you kindly mention, I must, in candor, say I do not 
think myself fit for the Presidency. I certainly am 
flattered and gratified that some partial friends think of 
me in that connection ; but I really think it best for 
our cause that no concerted effort, such as you suggest, 
should be made. Let this be considered confidential." 



.4,.. 



LINCOLN AT A FIVE POINTS MISSION. 

While Mr. Lincoln was in New York, in 1860, he 
visited, unattended, the Five Points House of Industry. 
The superintendent of the Sabbath-school there gave 
the following account of the event: 

" One Sunday morning I saw a tall, remarkable- 
looking man enter the room, and take a seat among us. 
He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and his 
countenance expi'essed such genuine interest that I ap- 
proached hira, and suggested that he might be willing 



LINCOLNIANA 145 

to say something to the children. He accepted the in- 
vitation with evi<Jent pleasure; and, coming forward, 
began a simple address, which at once fascinated every 
little hearer, and hushed the room into silence. His 
language was strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical 
with intense feeling. The little faces would droop into 
sad conviction as he uttered sentences of warning, and 
would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words 
of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his 
remarks, but the imperative shout of ' Go on ! 0, do go 
on!' would compel him to resume. 

"As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of 
the stranger, and marked his powerful head and deter- 
mined features, now touched into softness by the im- 
pressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity 
to learn something more about him, and, while he was 
quietly leaving the room, I begged to know his name. 
He courteously replied : ' It is Abraham Lincoln, from 

Illinois.'" 

=4.= 

A MINISTERIAL CHARGE. 

Early in the war it became Rev. Dr. Arthur Edwards's 
duty, for a brief period, to carry certain reports to the 
War Department, in Washington, at about nine in the 
morning. Being late one morning, he was in a desperate 
hurry to deliver the papers, in order to be able to catch 
the train returning to camp. On the winding, dark 
staircase of the old War Department it was his misfor- 
tune, while taking about three stairs at a time, to run 
his head like a catapult into the body of the President, 
striking him in the region of the right lower vest pocket. 
The usual surprised and relaxed human grunt of a man 

10 



146 ABRAHA3I LINCOLN. 

thus assailed came promptly. Mr. Edwards quickly 
seut an apology in the direction of the dimly seen form, 
feeling that the ungracious shock was expensive, even to 
the humblest clerk in the department. A second glance 
revealed to him the President as the victim of the col- 
lision. Then followed a special tender of " ten thousand 
pardons," and the President's reply : 

" One 's enough ; I wish the whole army would charge 

like that." 

•♦• 

A MAST-FED LAWYER. 

Once, when an eminent lawyer was presented to 
him, INIr. Lincoln courteously said he was familiar with 
the judge's professional reputation. The judge re- 
sponded : 

"And we do not forget that you, too, Mr. President, 
are a distinguished member of the bar." 

" O," said Mr. Lincoln, modestly, "I'm only a 

mast-fed lawyer." 

.*. 

NOT SICK ENOUGH FOR THE POSITION. 

A DELEGATION One day called on Mr. Lincoln to ask 
the appointment of a gentleman as Commissioner to the 
Sandwich Islands. They presented their case as ear- 
nestly as possible, and, besides his fitness for the place, 
they urged that he was in bad health, and a residence iu 
that balmy climate Avould be of great benefit to him. 
The President closed the interview with the discourag- 
ing remark: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there 
are eight other applicants for that place, and they are 
all sicker than your man." 



LIXCOLNIAXA. 



147 



MR. LINCOLN'S WHISKERS. 

Charles Carleton Coffin* relates the following 
iuterestiug story : 

"If we had been in the village of Westfiekl, on the 
shore of Lake Erie, Chautauqua County, N. Y., on an 
October evening, we might have seen little Grace Be- 
dell looking at a 
portrait of Mr. 
Lincoln, and a pic- 
ture of the log- 
cabin which he 
helped build for 
his father in 1830. 
" 'Mother,' said 
Grace, 'I think 
that Mr. Lincoln 
would look better 
if he wore whis- 
kers, and I mean 
to write and tell 
him so.' 

" ' Well, you may if you want to,' the mother an- 
swered. 

• " Grace's father was a Kepublican, and was going to 
vote for Mr. Lincoln. Two older brothers were Demo- 
crats, but she was a Republican. 

"Among the letters going West the next day was one 
with this superscription, 'Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., 
Springfield, Illinois.' It was Grace's letter, telling him 




* Life of 
Brothers. 



Lincoln. Copyright, 1892, by Harper & 



148 J BRA HA M LINCOLN. 

how old she Avas, where she lived, that she was a Re- 
publican, that she thought he would make a good Pres- 
ident, but would look better if he would let his wliiskers 
grow. If he would, she would try to coax her brothers 
to vote for him. She thought the rail fence around the 
cabin very pretty. ' If you have not time to answer 
my letter, will you allow your little girl to reply for 
you?' wrote Grace, at the end. 

"A day or two later Grace Bedell comes out of the 
Westfield post-office with a letter in her hand, postmarked 
Springfield, 111. Her pulse beat as never before. It is 
a cold morning, the wind blowing bleak and chill across 
the tossing waves of the lake. Suowflakes are falling. 
She can not wait till she reaches home, but tears open 
the letter. The melting flakes blur the writing ; but this 
is what she reads : 

" ' Springfield, III., October 19, 1860. 
" ' Miss Grace Bedell : 

" 'My Dear Little Miss, — Your very agreeable letter 
of the 15th is received. I regret the necessity of saying 
I have no daughter. I have three sons — one seventeen, 
one nine, and one seven years of age. They, with their 
mother, constitute my whole family. As to the whis- 
kers, having never worn any, do you not think people 
would call it a piece of silly affection [affectation] if I 
should begin it now ? 

" ' Your very sincere well-wisher, 

" 'A. Lincoln.' 

"When the train on which Mr. Lincoln was going 
to Washington, to become President of the United States, 
left Cleveland, Mr. Patterson, of Westfield, was invited 
into Mr. Lincoln's car. 



LIXCOLNIANA, 



149 



" 'Did I understand that yuur home is in Westfield? 
Mr. Lincoln asked. 

*' ' Yes, sir, that is my home.' 

"♦O, by the way, do you know of any one living 
there by the name of Bedell ?' 

" ' Yes, sir, I know the family very well.' 

"'I have a correspondent in that family. Mr. Be- 
dell's little girl, Grace, wrote me a very interesting let- 
ter advising me to wear whiskers, as she thought it 
would improve my looks. You see that I have followed 
her suggestion. Her letter was so unlike many that I 
received— some that threatened assassination in case I 
was elected-that it was really a relief to receive it and 
a pleasure to answer it.' -r • i 

"The train reached Westfield, and Mr. Lincoln 
stood upon the platform of the car to say a few words to 

the people. -Din 

" «I have a little correspondent here, Grace Bedell, 

and if the little miss is present I would like to see her.' 
-Grace was far down the platform, and the crowd 

prevented her seeing or hearing him. 

-'Grace, Grace, the President is calbng for you! 

they shouted. , , xu a 

"A friend made his way with her through the crowd. 

" 'Here she is.' 

"Mr. Lincoln stepped down from the car, took her 
by the hand, and gave her a kiss. ' You see, Grace, 1 
have let my whiskers grow for you.' 

"The kindly smile was upon his face, ihe train 
whirled on. His heart was lighter. For one brief mo- 
ment he had forgotten^the burdens that were pressing 
him with their weight." 



150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



"TAD" GUARDING THE WHITE HOUSE. 

In the summer the Lincolu family lived in a stoue 
cottage on the reservation belonging to the Government, 
in the suburbs of Washington, known as the Soldiers' 
Home. 

The drives to and from the Soldiers' Home and the 
White House were often undertaken in the darkness of 
late hours, and friends of the President, alarmed by ru- 
mors of attempted attacks upon the person of the chief, 
insisted that he should have a small body-guard of cav- 
alry to accompany him to and fro. The proposition was 
most unpalatable to Lincoln, and he resisted it as long 
as he could. When he finally consented, the little show 
of the cavalry escort was most distressful to him, and 
he repeatedly expressed his disgust at the "jingling and 
jangling" of the troop. A guard was also mounted at 
the main entrance of the White House; and this, too, 
annoyed him not a little, especially as it was needful, in 
the observance of military discipline, that they should 
salute him when he passed in and out. 

"On one occasion," says Noah Brooks, "Tad, hav- 
ing been sportively commissioned a lieutenant in the 
United States Army by Secretary Stanton, procured 
several muskets, and drilled the men-servants of the 
house in the manual of arras, without attracting the at- 
tention of his father. And one night, to their conster- 
nation, he put them all on duty, and relieved the regu- 
lar sentries, who, seeing the lad in full uniform, or per- 
haps appreciating the joke, gladly went to their quarters. 
Robert Lincoln, hearing of this extraordinary perform- 
ance, indignantly went to his father to remonstrate 



LINCOLNIANA. 151 

against the servants being compelled to do special duty 
when their day's work was done. Tad insisted on his 
rights as an officer. The President laughed, and de- 
clined to interfere. But when the lad had lost his little 
authority in his boyish sleep, the Commander-in-chief 
of the Army and Navy of the United States went down 
and personally discharged the sentries his son had put 
on post. For one night, at least, the White House was 

left unguarded." 

■<fr' 

A HIT AT McCLELLAN. 

When Grant first called on the President, in Wash- 
ington, one of the first things that Mr. Lincoln said to 
him, was : 

" Grant, have you ever read the book by Orpheus C. 

Kerr?" 

"Well, no; I never did," replied the general. 

Mr. Lincoln said : 

" You ought to read it ; it is a very interesting book. 
I have had a good deal of satisfaction reading that book. 
There is one poem there that describes the meeting of 
tlie animals, the substance of it being that the animals 
were holding a convention, and a dragon, or some 
dreadful thing, was near by and had to be conquered, 
and it was a question as to who should undertake the 
job. By and by a monkey stepped forward and pro- 
posed to do the work up. The monkey said he thought 
he could do it if he could get an inch or two more put 
on his tail. The assemblage voted him a few inches 
more to his tail, and he went out and tried his hand. 
He was unsuccessful, and returned, stating that he 
wanted a few more inches put on his tail. The request 



152 ABBAffA3f LINCOLN. 

was grauted, and he went again. His second effort was 
a failure. He asked that more inches be put on his 
tail, and he would try a third time." 

"At last," said General Grant, in repeating the story, 
" it got through ray head what Lincoln was aiming at, 
as applying to my Avanting more men, and finally I said : 
' Mr. Lincoln, I don't want any more inches put on my 
tail.'" 

The story, however, was a hit at McClellan. 



A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER. 

The following letter is to be found in a private col- 
lection in Chicago : 

"Executive Mansion, October 17, 1861. 
" Major Ramsey : 

" My Dear Sir, — The lady — bearer of this — says she 
has two sons who want to work. Set them at it, if pos- 
sible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should 

be encouraged. A. Lincoln." 
.«. 

LINCOLN'S SUNDAY-REST ORDER. 

" Executive Mansion, \ 
" Washington, Nov. 15, 1862. / 

"The President, Commander-in-chief of the Army 
and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of 
the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and 
naval service. The importance for man and beast of 
the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian 
soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best 
sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for 
the Divine Will, demand that Sunday labor in the array 



LTNCOLXIANA. 153 

and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. 
The discipline and character of the national forces should 
not suffer, nor -the cause they defend be imperiled, by 
the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. 
'At this time of public distress,' adopting the words of 
Washington in 1776, ' men may find enough to do in 
the service of God and their country, without abandon- 
ing themselves to vice and immorality.' The first gen- 
eral order issued by the Father of his Country, after the 
Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in 
which our institutions were founded, and should ever be 
defended. 'The general hopes and trusts that every 
officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes 
a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and 
liberties of his country.' A. Lincoln." 



LINCOLN AT THE WASHINGTON NAVY-YARD. 
One afternoon in the summer of 1862, the President 
accompanied several gentlemen to the Washington Navy- 
yard, to witness some experiments with a newly-invented 
gun. Subsequently the party went aboard one of the 
steamers Iving at the wharf. A discussion was going on 
as to the merits of the invention, in the midst of which 
Mr Lincoln caught sight of some axes hanging up out- 
side of the cabin. Leaving the group, he quietly went 
forward, and taking one down, returned with it, and 

said : o i i 

" Gentlemen, you may talk about your ' Kaphael re- 
peaters ' and ' eleven-inch Dahlgrens ;' but here is an in- 
stitution which I guess I understand better than either of 
you " With that he held the axe out at arm's length 



154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

by the end of the handle, or "helve," as the wood-cut- 
ters call it — a feat not another person of the party could 
perform, though all made the attempt. 



REVISING HIS CABINET. 

Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was chosen chiefly from his 
rivals for the Presideulial nomination and from con- 
siderations largely political. The exigencies of the war 
demanded, in the opinion of many Republicans, includ- 
ing some leading United States senators, a reorganiza- 
tion of the Cabinet. After the retirement of General 
Cameron, the senators held a caucus and appointed a 
committee to wait on the President. 

The committee represented that inasmuch as the 
Cabinet had not been chosen with reference to the war, 
and had more or less lost the coufidence of the country, 
and since the President had decided to select a new War 
Minister, they thought the occasion was opportune to 
change the whole seven Cabinet ministers. 

Mr. Lincoln listened with patient courtesy, and when 
the senators had concluded, he said : 

" Gentlemen, your request for a change of the whole 
Cabinet, because I have made one change, reminds me 
of a story I once heard in Illinois, of a farmer who was 
much troubled by skunks. They annoyed his household 
at night, aud his wife insisted that he should take meas- 
ures to get rid of them. One moonlight night he loaded 
his old shotgun aud stationed himself in the yard to 
watch for intruders, his wife remaining in the house 
anxiously awaiting the result. After some time she 
heard the shotgun go off, and in a few moments the 



LINCOLNIANA. 155 

farmer entered the house. ' What luck had you ?' said 
she. ' I hid myself behind the wood-pile,' said the old 
man, ' with the shotgun pointed toward the hen-roost, 
and before long there appeared, not one shunk, but 
seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he 
raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best 
to let the other six go.' " 

With a hearty laugh the senators retired, and noth- 
ing more was heard of Cabinet reconstruction. 



NO MERCY FOR MAN-STEALERS. 

Hon. John B. Alley, of Lynn, Massachusetts, was 
made the bearer to the President of a petition for par- 
don, by a person confined in the Newburyport jail for 
being engaged in the slave-trade. He had been sen- 
tenced to five years' imprisonment, and the payment of 
a fine of one thousand dollars. The petition was accom- 
panied by a letter to Mr. Alley, in which the prisoner 
acknowledged his guilt and the justice of his sentence. 
He was very penitent — at least, on paper — and had re- 
ceived the full measure of his punishment, so far as it 
related to the term of his imprisonment ; but he was 
still held because he could not pay his fine. Mr. Alley 
read the letter to the President, who was much moved 
by its pathetic appeals ; and when he had himself read 
the petition, he looked up, and said : 

" My friend, that is a very touching appeal to our 
feelings. You know my weakness is to be, if possible, 
too easily moved by appeals for mercy, and, if this man 
were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of man 
could perpetrate, I might forgive him on such an ap- 



156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

peal ; but the man who could go to Africa, aud rob her 
of her children, and sell them into interminable bond- 
age, with no other motive than that which is furnished 
by dollars aud cents, is so much worse than the most de- 
praved murderer, that he can never receive pardon at 
my hands. No ! He may rot in jail before he shall 
have liberty by any act of mine." 



SIGNING A PARDON IN BED. 

Mr. Kellogg, representative from Essex County, 
New York, received a dispatch one evening stating that 
a young townsman, who had been induced to enlist 
through his instrumentality, had, for a serious misde- 
meanor, been convicted by a court-martial, and was to 
be shot the next day. Greatly agitated, Mr. Kellogg 
went to Secretary Stanton, and urged, in the strongest 
manner, a reprieve. The Secretary was inexorable. 

Too many cases of the kind had been let off, he said, 
and it was time an example was made. 

Leaving the War Department, Mr. Kellogg went 
directly to the White House. The sentiuel on duty 
told him that special orders had been issued to admit no 
one whatever that night. After a long parley, by 
pledging himself to assume the responsibility of the act, 
the congressman passed in. The President had retired ; 
but, indifferent to etiquette or ceremony. Judge Kellogg 
pressed his way to his bedroom. In an excited man- 
ner, he stated that the dispatch announcing the hour of 
execution had but just reached him. 

"This man must not be shot, Mr. President," said 
he. "I can't help what he may have done. Why, he 



LINCOLNIANA. 157 

is an old neighbor of mine; I can't allow him to be 
shot !" 

Lincoln sat up in bed, quietly listening to the vehe- 
ment protestations of his old friend (they were in Con- 
gress together), and at length said: "Well, I don't 
believe shooting him will do him any good. Give me 

that pen." 

.{>, 

A CHURCH WANTED FOR WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 

At the White House, one day, a well-dressed lady 
came forward, without apparent embarrassment in her 
air or manner, and addressed the President. Giving 
her. a very close and scrutinizing look, he said : 

" Well, madam, what can I do for you?" 

She proceeded to tell him that she lived in Alex- 
andria, and that the church where she worshiped had 
been taken for a hospital. 

"What church, madam?" Mr. Lincoln asked, in a 
quick, nervous manner. 

" The Church," she replied; "and as there are 

only two or three wounded soldiers in it, I came to see 
if you would not let us have it, as we want it very much 
to worship God in." 

"Madam, have you been to see the post-surgeon at 
Alexandria about this matter?" 

"Yes, sir; but we could do nothing with him." 

"Well, we put him there to attend to just such 
business, and it is reasonable to suppose that he knows 
better what should be done, under the circumstances, 
than I do. See here : You say you live in Alexandria ; 
probably you own property there. How much will you 
give to assist in building a hospital ?" 



158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" You know, Mr. Lincoln, our property is very much 
embarrassed by the war; so, really, I could hardly af- 
ford to give much for such a purpose." 

" Well, madam, I expect we shall have another fight 
Boon ; and my candid opinion is, God wants that church 
for poor, xoounded Union soldiers, as much as he does for 
secesh people to worship in." Turning to his table, he 
said, quite abruptly : " You will excuse me ; I can do 
nothing for you. Good-day, madam." 

.4" 

LINCOLN'S AND BATES'S PRISONERS. 

Attorney-General Bates, who was a Virginian 
by birth, and had many relatives in that State, oneday 
heard that a young Virginian, the son of one of his old 
friends, had been captured across the Potomac, was a 
prisoner of war, and was not in good health. Knowing 
the boy's father to be in his heart a Union man, Mr. 
Bates conceived the idea of having the son paroled and 
sent home, of course under promise not to return to the 
army. He went to see the President, and said: "I 
have a personal favor to ask. 1 want you to give me a 
prisoner." And he told him of the case. 

The President said: "Bates, I have an almost par- 
allel case. The son of an old friend of mine in Illi- 
nois ran off and entered the rebel army. The young 
fool has been captured, is a pri.souer of war, and his old, 
broken-hearted father has asked me to send him home, 
promising, of course, to keep him there. I have not 
seen my Avay clear to do it; but, if you and I unite 
our influence with this Administration, I believe we can 
manage it together, and make two loyal fathers happy. 
Let us make them our prisoners." And he did so. 



LINCOLNIANA. 359 

LINCOLN'S REMARKABLE LETTER TO GENERAL HOOKER. 

The following remarkable letter to General Hooker 
was written after the latter had taken command of the 
Army of the Potomac, in January, 1863. Before the 
President sent it, an intimate friend chanced to be in 
his cabinet one night, and Mr. Lincoln read it to him, 
remarking: " I shall not read this to anybody else; 
but I want to know how it strikes you." During the 
following April or May, while the Army of the Poto- 
mac lay opposite Fredericksburg, this friend accom- 
panied the President to General Hooker's headquarters 
on a visit. One night General Hooker, alone with this 
gentleman, said : 

" The President says that he showed you this letter;" 
and he then took out the document. The tears stood in 
Hooker's eyes as he added: "It is such a letter as a 
father might have written to his son ; and yet it hurt 
me." Then he said: "When I have been to Rich- 
mond, I shall have this letter published." 

Sixteen years later, the letter was published. It 
reads as follows : 

" ExECDTivE Mansion, Washington, D. C, "I 
January 26, 1863. J 
"Major-General Hooker: 

" General,— I have placed you at the head of the Army 
of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon what ap- 
pears to me to be sufficient reasons ; and yet I think it best 
for you to know that there are some things in regard to 
which I am not quite satisfied with you. I beUeve you to be 
a brave and skillful soldier— which, of course, I like. I also 
believe you do not mix politics with your profession— in 
which you are right. You have confidence in yourself — 
which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You 



1 60 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 

are ambitious — vhich, within reasonable bounds, does good 
rather than harm; but I tliink that, during General Burn- 
side's command of the arm}-, you have taken counsel of your 
ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which 
you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most merito- 
rious and honorable brother-officer. I have heard, in such a 
way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the 
army and th"^ Government needed a dictator. Of course, it 
was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the 
command. Only those generals who gain puccesses can set 
up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and 
I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support 
you to the utmost of its ability — which is neither more nor 
less than it has done, and will do, for all commanders. I 
much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse 
into the army, of criticising their commander and withhold- 
ing confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall 
assist you, as far as I can, to put it down. Neither you nor 
Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of 
an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware 
of rashness. Beware of rashness ; but, with energy and 
sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories. 

" Yours, very truly, A. Lincoln." 



THREE "BORES." 

One day when Mr. Lincoln was alone and busily 
engaged he was disturbed by the intrusion of three men 
who, without apology, proceeded to lay their claim before 
him. The spokesman of the three reminded the Presi- 
dent that they were the owners of some torpedo or other 
warlike invention which, if the Government would only 
adopt it, would soon crush the rebellion. 

"Now," said the spokesman, " we have been here to 
see you time and again ; you have referred us to the 



LINCOLNIANA. 161 

Secretary of War, to the chief of ordinance, and the 
general of the army, and they will give us no satisfac- 
tion. We have been kept here waiting, till money and 
patience are exhausted, and we now come to demand of 
you a final reply to our application." 

Mr. Lincoln listened quietly for a while, and then 
replied : 

"You three gentlemen remind me of a story I once 
heard of a poor little boy out AVest who had lost his 
mother. His father wanted to give him a religious edu- 
cation, and so placed him in the family of a clergyman 
whom he directed to instruct the little fellow carefully 
in the Scriptures. Every day the boy was required to 
commit to memory and recite one chapter of the Bible. 
Things proceeded smoothly until they reached that 
chapter which details the story of the trials of Shadrach, 
Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. The boy 
got on well until he was asked to repeat these three names, 
but he had forgotten them. His teacher told him he 
must learn them, and gave him another day to do so. 
Next day the boy again forgot them, ' Now,' said the 
teacher, ' you have again failed to remember those names, 
and you can go no further till you have learned them. 
I will give you another day on this lesson, and if you 
do n't repeat the names I will punish you.' A third 
time the boy came to recite and got down to the stum- 
bling block, when the clergyman said : ' Now tell me the 
names of the men in the fiery furnace.' ' O,' said the 
boy, ' here come those three infernal bores ! I wish the 
devil had them !' " 

Having received their "final answer" the three 
patriots retired. 

11 



1 62 A BRAHAM LINCOLN. 



LIFTING A BURDEN FROM A FATHER'S HEART. 

General Clinton B. Flsk, attending a reception 
at the White House, saw, waiting in the anteroom, a 
poor old man from Tennessee. Sitting down beside him, 
he learned that he had been waiting three or four days 
to get an audience, and that on his seeing Mr. Lincoln 
probably depended the life of his son, who was under 
sentence of death for some military offense. 

General Fisk wrote his case in outline on a card, 
and sent it in, with a sjiecial request that the President 
would see the man. In a moment the order came. The 
old man showed Mr. Lincoln his papers, and he, on 
taking them, said he would look into the case and give 
hira the result on the following day. 

The old man, in an agony of fear, looked up into the 
President's sympathetic face, and cried out : 

"To-morrow may be too late! My son is under 
sentence of death ! The decision ought to be made 
now !" and the tears came into his eyes. 

" Come," said Mr. Lincoln, " Avait a bit, and I'll tell 
you a story," and then he told the old man General 
Fisk's story about the swearing driver, as follows: 

The general had begun his military life as a colonel, 
and, Avhen he raised his regiment in Missouri, he pro- 
posed to his men that he should do all the swearing of 
the regiment. They assented ; and for months no in- 
stance was known of the violation of the promise. The 
colonel had a teamster named John Todd, who, as roads 
were not always the best, had some difficulty in com- 
manding his temper and his tongue. John happened to 
be driving a mule team through a series of mud-holes 



LINCOLNIANA. 



163 



a little worse than usual, when, unable to restrain him- 
self any longer, he burst forth into a volley of energetic 
oaths. The colonel took notice of the offense, and 
brought John to an account. 

"John," said he, "didn't you promise to let me do 
all the swearing of the regiment?" 

"Yes, I did, colonel," he replied, " but the fact was, 
the swearing had to be done then or not at all, and you 
were n't there to do it." 

As Mr. Lincoln told the story, the old man forgot 
his boy, and both the President and his listener had a 
hearty laugh together at its conclusion. Then he wrote 
a few words which the old man read, and tears of joy 
began to flow from his eyes, for the words saved the life 

of his son. 

*' 

LINCOLN "TAKING UP A COLLECTION. " 
"While the Army of the Potomac was near Fal- 
mouth, on the river opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia, 
early in the war," says Dr. Arthur Edwards, in the 
Norihivesterii Chnstian Advocate, "Mr. Lincoln reviewed 
and inspected that splendid body of troops, one hundred 
thousand strong. Those who were present remember 
the quiet Dobbin ridden by the President. The steed 
proceeded soberly, as if he had been put upou his equme 
honor to be kind to his illustrious rider. 

" During a part of the formality, when the reviewing 
officer or personage is specially the center of all eyes, 
Mr. Lincoln carried his tall 'plug hat' in his hand, and, 
as he bumped up and down in his saddle, not danger- 
ously but considerably, he bowed right and left to the 
magnificent military lines. The right arm was extended 



1 64 ABBA HA M LIXCOLN. 

almost horizoutally, and the hand grasped the hat's 
anqjle brim. 

"The whole aspect of the now historic man abun- 
dantly justified the suggestion of a certain Methodist 
who was present, to the effect that ' the dear old gentle- 
man looks as if he were about to take up a collection.' 
The joker was discounted on the ground that he was in- 
dulffin"; his Methodist traditions as far as the collection 
was concerned, but a second look at the horse and his 
rider aided many a kindly smile." 



LITTLE INFLUENCE WITH THE ADMINISTRATION. 

Judge Baldwin, of California, being in Washing- 
ton, called one day on General Halleck, and, presuming 
upon a familiar acquaintance in California a few years 
before, solicited a pass outside of the lines to see a 
brother in Virginia, not thinking that he would meet 
with a refusal, as both his brother and himself were 
good Union men. 

" We have been deceived too often," said General 
Halleck, " and I regret I can 't grant it." 

Judge Baldwin then went to Stanton, and was very 
briefly disposed of, with the same result. Finally, he 
obtained an interview with Mr. Lincoln, and stated his 
case. 

" Have you applied to General Halleck ?" inquired 
the President. 

" Yes, and met with a flat refusal," said Judge 
Baldwin. 

" Then you must see Stanton," continued the Presi- 
dent. 



LINCOLN lANA. 165 

" I have, and with the same result," was the reply. 

" Well, then," said Mr. Lincoln, with a smile, " I 
can do nothing ; for you must know that I have very 
little influence with this Administration." 



A LITTLE HERO. 

Hon. "W. D. Kell suggested to the President one 
day that he send the sou of one of his constituents to 
the naval school for a year. The boy had served a year 
on board the gunboat Ottawa, and had been in two im- 
portant engagements ; in the first as a powder-monkey, 
when he had conducted himself with such coolness that 
he had been chosen as captain's messenger in the 
second. 

Mr. Lincoln at once wrote on the back of a letter 
from the commander of the Ottawa, which Mr. Kell had 
handed him, to the Secretary of the Navy : " If the 
appointments for this year have not been made, let this 
boy be appointed." The appointment had not been 
made, and he took it home with him. It directed the 
lad to report for examination at the school in July. 
Just as he was ready to start, his fiather, looking over 
the law, discovered that he could not report until he was 
fourteen years of age, which he would not be until Sep- 
tember following. The boy sat down and cried. He 
feared that be was not to go to the naval school. He 
was consoled, however, by being told that " the Presi- 
dent could make it right." The next morning Mr. Kell 
met him at the door of the Executive Chamber with his 
father. Taking by the hand the little fellow — short for 
his age, dressed in the sailor's blue pants and shirt — iie 



166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

advanced with him to the President, who sat iu his 
usual seat, aud said : 

" Mr. President, my youug friend, Willie Bladen, 
finds a difficulty about his appointment. You have di- 
rected him to appear at the school in July ; but he is 
not yet fourteen years of age." But before he got half 
of this out, Mr. Lincoln, laying down his spectacles, 
rose and said : 

" Bless me ! is that the boy who did so gallantly in 
those two great battles ? Why, I feel that I should bow 
to him, and not he to me," The little fellow had made 
his graceful bow. 

The President took the papers at once, and as soon 
as he learned that a postponement until September 
■would suffice, made the order that the lad should report 
in that month. Then putting his hand on Willie's head, 
he said : 

" NoAV, my boy, go home and have good fun during 
the two months, for they are about the last holidays 
you will get." 

WORK ENOUGH FOR TWENTY PRESIDENTS. 

A FARMER from one of the border counties went to 
the President on a certain occasion with the complaint 
that the Union soldiers, in passing his farm, had helped 
themselves, not only to hay, but to his horse ; and he 
hoped the proper officer would be required to consider 
his claim immediately. 

" Why, my good sir," replied Mr. Lincoln, " if I 
should attempt to consider every such individual case, I 
should find work enough for twenty Presidents! In my 
early days, I knew one Jack Chase, who was a lumber- 



LINCOLNIANA. 167 

man ou the Illinoia, and, when steady and sober, the 
best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick twenty- 
five years ago to take the logs over the rapids, but he 
was skillful with a ratt, and always kept her straight in 
the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and Jack — 
he 's dead now, poor fellow ! — was made captain of her. 
He always used to take the wheel going through the 
rapids. One day, when the boat was plunging and wal- 
lowing along the boiling current, and Jack's utmost 
vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow 
channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail, and hailed him with: 
* Say, Mister Captain ! I wish you would just stop your 
boat a minute — I 've lost my apple overboard !' " 



A BRIDE'S PLEDGE. 

In the spring of 1863 a very handsome and attract- 
ive young lady from Philadelphia besought the Presi- 
dent to restore her husband to his position, from which 
he had been removed in disgrace. Sometime before 
she had been married to a young lieutenant in a Penn- 
sylvania regiment. He had been compelled to leave 
her the day after the wedding to rejoin his command in 
the Army of the Potomac. After some time he ob- 
tained leave of absence, returned to Philadelphia, and 
they started on a brief honeymoon. A movement of 
the army being imminent, the War Department issued 
a peremptory order requiring all absent officers to re- 
join their regiments by a certain day on penalty of dis- 
missal in case of disobedience. The bride and groom, 
away on their wedding tour, failed to see the order, and 
ou their return he was met by a notice of his dismissal 



168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

from the service. The young fellow was completely 
prostrated by the disgrace, and his wife hurried to 
Washington to get him restored. She told her story 
Avith simple and pathetic eloquence, and wound up by 
saying : 

"Mr, Lincoln, won't you help us? I promise you, 
if you will restore him, he will be faithful to his duty." 

The President had listened with evident sympathy 
and a half-amused smile at her earnestness, and as she 
closed her appeal, he said, with parental kindness : 

"And you say, my child, that Fred was compelled 
to leave you the day after the wedding ? Poor fellow ! 
I don't w^onder at his anxiety to get back; and if he 
staid a little longer than he ought to have done, we '11 
have to overlook his fault this time. Take this card 
to the Secretary of War, and he will restore your hus- 
band." 

She went to the War Department, saw the Secre- 
retary, who rebuked her for troubling the President, 
and dismissed her somewhat curtly. On her way down 
the AVar Department stairs, she met the President as- 
cending. He recognized her, and, with a pleasant smile, 
said : 

"Well, my dear, have you seen the Secretary?" 

" Yes, Mr. Lincoln," she replied, " and he seemed 
very angry with me for going to you. Won't you 
speak to him for me ?" 

" Give yourself no trouble," said he. " I will see 
that the order is issued." And in a few days her hus- 
band was remanded to his regiment. 

" Not long after," says Titian J. Coffey, who relates 
the story in the Cincinnati Times-Star, " the young man 



LIXCOLXIANA. 169 

was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, thus sealing with 

bis blood his wife's pledge that he should be faithful to 

his duty." 

.«. 

CONSIDERATION FOR A COUNT. 

During the war an Austrian count applied to Pres- 
ideut Lincoln for a position. Being introduced by the 
Austrian Minister, he needed, of course, no further rec- 
ommendation ; but, as if fearing that his importance 
might not be duly appreciated, he proceeded to explain 
that he was a count — that his family were ancient and 
highly respectable. 

Lincoln, with a twinkle in his eye, tapped the titled 
foreigner on the shoulder, in a fatherly way, as if the 
man had confessed to some wrong, and in a soothing 
tone, said : " Never mind ; you shall be treated with just 
as much consideration, for all that." 



A DESIRABLE POSITION. 

A GENTLEMAN named Farquhar, of York, Pa., did 
not enlist because he was a Quaker. In the course of 
the war, General Early marched before York, and threat- 
ened to burn the houses of its peaceful citizens unless a 
ransom of twenty-five thousand dollars was forthcoming. 
Mr. Farquhar was foremost in arranging matters, and 
struck a bargain with the Confederates which, while they 
were near, seemed very clever to his fellow-townsmen, 
but when they marched away brought forth many bitter 
complaints. The whole matter set Mr. Farquhar think- 
ing. The war ought to be ended. So he set out for 
Washington, to offer his services to the Government. 



170 ABRA HA M LINCOLN. 

He called on Mr. Lincoln, told him how he felt, aud 
said he wished to help his country. 

" Well," said Lincoln, "come with me to the Secre- 
tary of War, and I will give you a position which I 
would gladly take myself." 

They were soon in Mr. Stanton's office. Lincoln 
made a sign to the Secretary, who produced a Bible, 
and proceeded to swear ]\Ir. Farquhar into the United 
States service. The ceremony had not gone very far, 
■when he discovered that the position Mr. Lincoln cov- 
eted was that of a jirivate soldier. Mr. Farquhar 
showed alarm, aud the President laughingly re- 
leased him. 

— ♦• 

THE LORD AND THE PEOPLE WITH HIM. 

Mr. Lincoln and a friend were standing upon the 
threshold of the door under the portico of the White 
House, awaiting the coachman, when a letter was put 
into his hand. While he was reading this, a country- 
man, plainly dressed, with his wife and two little boys, 
who had evidently been straying about, looking at the 
places of public interest in the city, approached. As they 
reached the portico, the father, who was in advance, 
caught sight of the tall figure of Mr. Lincoln, absorbed 
in his letter. His wife and the little boys were ascend- 
ing the steps. 

The man stopped suddenly, put out his hand with a 
"hush" to his family, and, after a moment's gaze, he 
bent down and whispered to them : *' There is the Presi- 
dent." Then, leaving them, he slowly made a half-cir- 
cuit around ^Ir. Lincoln, watching him intently all the 
while. 



LINCOLNIANA. 171 

At this point, having finished his letter, the President 
turned, and said: "Well, we will not wait any longer 
for the carriage ; it won't hurt you and me to walk 
down." 

The countryman stepped up very diffidently, and 
asked if he might be allowed to take the President by 
the hand, after which he asked if he would extend the 
same privilege to his wife and little boys. 

Mr. Lincoln, good-naturedly, approached the latter, 
who had remained where they were stopped, and, reach- 
ing down, said a kind word to the bashful little fellows, 
who shrank close up to their mother, and did not reply. 
This simple act filled the father's cup full. 

"The Lord is with you, Mr. President," he said, rev- 
erently ; and then, hesitating a moment, he added, with 
strong emphasis, " «?iti the people too, sir; and the peo- 
ple too r 

THE FIRST COLORED OFFICER. 

Rev. H. M. Turner, now a bishop of the African 
Methodist Episcopal Church, was the first colored man 
commissioned an officer in the United States Army. 
He thus writes, in the NortJuvestern Christian Advocate: 

"The first colored regiment, which was raised and 
organized under the direct auspices of the General Gov- 
ernment (I do not refer to those enlisted by General 
Butler in New Orleans, or Governor Andrew in Mas- 
sachusetts), was raised in Washington, D. C. 

"The first two companies were enlisted in the base- 
ment of Israel Church ; but the regiment was completed 
on Mason's Island, just across the Potomac from Wash- 
ington City. All the commissioned officers, being white, 



172 A BRAHAM LINCOLN. 

were appointed from the colonel down, and a white 
chaplain had heen assigned to duty to the same regi- 
ment, temporarily, by the colonel in command. This 
writer, however, was the choice of the colored members 
of the regiment for the position of chaplain, and, at 
their solicitation, I applied for the same. 

" Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and 
Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, and 
afterward chief justice of the United States Supreme 
Court, were favorable; but the other Cabinet officers 
were either unfavorable or in doubt as to the advisabil- 
ity of making a colored man a commissioned officer ia 
any form — at least, I was so informed by Secretary 
Chase. 

"When the question came up in the Cabinet for 
final decision before Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton and Mr. 
Chase held that the colored soldiei's should have their 
own spiritual director and guide, and that my labors in 
the organization of the regiment entitled me to the po- 
sition. Messrs. Seward, Blair, Welles, and others of 
the Cabinet thought it rather too early to risk public 
sentiment in commissioning a colored man to any posi- 
tion whatever. 

" Mr. Lincoln sat with great patience and heard the 
discussion, but finally put a quietus to the question at 
issue by saying, ' Well, we have far graver matters for 
consideration than this;' and, turning to the Secretary 
of War, simply said : 

" 'Stanton, issue his commission as chaplain. Now, 
gentlemen, let us proceed to business.' 

"Mr. Chase sent for me the same afternoon to come 
to his residence, and, after congratulating me upon 



LINCOLNIANA. 173 

being a United States chaplain, and the first one of my 
race to receive a commissiou, gave a detailed narrative 
of the whole transaction, but pledged me to secrecy." 



LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM.* 

O why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 

Be scattered around, and together be laid ; 

And the young and the old, and the low and the high. 

Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie. 

The infant a mother attended and loved ; 
The mother that infant's aflTection who proved ; 
The husband that mother and infant who blest — 
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. 

[The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, 
Shone beauty and pleasure — her triumphs are by ; 
And the memory of those who loved her and praised, 
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.] 

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne ; 
Tlie brow of the priest that the miter hath worn ; 
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, 
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; 
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep ; 
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread. 
Have faded away, like the grass that we tread. 

* This poem was a special favorite of Mr. Lincoln's, and was 
often quoted by him. It was written by William Knox, a young 
Scotchman, a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott. He died in Edin- 
burgh, in 1825, at the age of thirty-six. The two verses in brackets 
were not repeated by Mr. Lincoln, but belong to the original poem. 



174 A BR AH AM LINCOLN. 

[The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven ; 
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven ; 
The wise and the foolisli, the guiltj- and just, 
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.] 

So the multitude goes — like the flower of the weed, 
That withers away to let others succeed ; 
So the multitude comes — even those we behold, 
To repeat every tale that has often been told. 

For we are the same our fathers have been ; 
We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; 
We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, 
And run the same course our fathei-s have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think ; 
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink ; 
To the life we are clinging, they also would cling ; 
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 

They loved— but the story we can not unfold; 
They scorned — but the heart of the haughty is cold ; 
They grieved — but no wail from their slumber will come; 
They joyed — but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 

They died— ay, they died — we things that are now, 
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, 
And make in their dwellings a transient abode, 
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. 

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain ; 
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, 
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 

'T is the wink of an eye, 't is the draught of a breath. 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death. 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud — 
why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 



LINCOLNIANA. 175 

A PRACTICAL SERMON. 

On a certain occasion, two ladies from Tennessee 
came before the President, asking the release of their 
husbands, held as prisoners of war at Johnson's Island. 
They were put off until the following Friday, when they 
came again, and were again put off until Saturday. At 
each of the interviews, one of the ladies urged that her 
husband was a religious man. On Saturday, when the 
President ordered the release of the prisoners, he said to 
this lady : 

"You say your husband is a religious man. Tell 
him, when you meet him, that I say I am not much of 
a judge of religion ; but that, in my opinion, the re- 
ligion which sets men to rebel and fight against their 
Government, because, as they think, that Government 
does not sufficiently help some men to eat their bread in 
the sweat of other men's faces, is not the sort of religion 
upon which people can get to heaven." 



MR. LINCOLN'S "LEG-CASES." 

Mr. Lincoln's unwillingness to allow any soldier to 
be shot for cowardice, sleeping at his post, or other of- 
fenses which, in time of war, are construed as treason- 
able, but in which the treasonable motive is lacking, was 
a source of great annoyance to the commanders; but it 
was appreciated by every soldier, and endeared the 
President the more to them. 

In the earlier years of the war, all the death-penal- 
ties of courts-martial had to be sent up to the Presi- 
dent, as commander-in-chief, for his approval. When 
Judge Holt, the judge-advocate-general of the army, 



176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

laid the first case before the President and explained it, 
he replied: "Well, I will keep this for a few days, 
until I have more time to read the testimony." Tliat 
seemed quite reasonable. 

When the judge explained the next case, Mr. Lin- 
coln said: "I must put this by until I can settle in 
my mind whether this soldier can better serve the coun- 
try dead than living." 

To the third, he answered: "The general com- 
manding the brigade is to be here in a few days to con- 
sult with Stanton and myself about military matters ; I 
will wait until then, and talk the matter over with him." 

Finally, there was a very flagrant case of a soldier 
who threw down his gun behind a friendly stump. His 
cowardice demoralized his regiment. When tried for 
his cowardice, there was no defense. The court-martial, 
in examining his antecedents, found that he had neither 
father nor mother living, nor wife, nor child; that he 
was unfit to wear the loyal uniform ; and that he was a 
thief, who stole continually from his comrades. 

" Here," said Judge Holt, " is a case which comes ex- 
actly within your requirements. He does not deny his 
guilt; he will better serve the country dead than living, 
as he has no relation to mourn for him, and he is not 
fit to be in the ranks of patriots, at any rate." 

Mr. Lincoln's refuge of excuses was all swept away. 
Judge Holt expected, of course, that he would write 
" approved" on the paper; but the President, running 
his long fingers through his hair, as he used to do when 
in anxious thought, replied : 

" AVell, after all, Judge, I think I must put this with 
my leg-cases." 



LINCOLNIANA. 177 

"Leg-cases!" said Judge Holt, with a frown at this 
supposed levity of the President in a case of life and 
death. "What do you mean by leg-cases, sir?" 

"Why, why," replied Mr. Liucoln, "dd you see 
those papers crowded into those pigeon-holes? They are 
the cases that you call by that long title — 'cowardice in 
the face of the enemy;' but I call them, for short, my 
' leg-cases.' But I put it to you, and I leave it for you 
to decide for yourself, if Almighty God gives a man a 
cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running 
away with him?" 

AN INDIFFERENT PRESIDENT. 

When General Phelps took possession of Ship Isl- 
and, near New Orleans, early in the war, it will be re- 
membered that he issued a proclamation, somewhat 
bombastic in tone, freeing the slaves. To the surprise 
of many people on both sides, the President took no 
official notice of this movement. Some time had elapsed, 
when one day a friend took him to task for his seeming 
indifference on so important a matter. 

" Well," said Mr. Lincoln, " I feel about that a good 
deal as a man whom I will call ' Jones,' whom I once 
knew, did about his wife. He was one of your meek 
men, and had the reputation of being badly henpecked. 
At last, one day, his wife was seen switching him out of 
the house. A day or two afterward, a friend met him 
in the street, and said : ' Jones, I have always stood up 
for you, as you know; but I am not going to do it any 
longer. Any man who will stand quietly and take a 
switching from his wife, deserves to be horsewhipped. 
Jones looked up with a wink, patting his friend on the 

12 



178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

back. 'Now, do u't,' said he; 'why, it didn't hurt rae 
auy ; and you 've no idea what a power of good it did 
Sarah Ann !' " 



LINCOLN AND THE BABY. 

"Old Daniel," one of the White House ushers, 
told the following story : 

A poor woman from Philadelphia had been waiting, 
■with a baby in her arms, for several days to see the 
President. She said that her husband had furnished a 
substitute for the army, but some time afterward, in a 
state of intoxication, he was induced to enlist. Upon 
reaching the post assigned his regiment, he deserted, 
thinking the Government was not entitled to his services. 
Returning home, he was arrested, tried, convicted, and 
sentenced to be shot. The sentence was to be ex- 
ecuted on Saturday. On Monday his wife left her home 
with her baby, to endeavor to see the President. 

Said Daniel: "She had been waiting three days, and 
there was no chance for her to get in. Late in the 
afternoon of the third day, the President was going 
through the passage to his private room to get a cup of 
tea. On the way he heard the baby cry. He instantly 
went back to his office and rang the bell. 

"Daniel," said he, "is there a woman with a baby 
in the anteroom?" 

Daniel said there was, and it was a case he ought to 
see ; for it was a matter of life and death. 

"Send her to me at once," said the President. 

She went in, told her story, and the President par- 
doned her husband. 

As the woman came out from his presence, her eyes 



LINCOLNIANA. 



179 



were lifted and her lips moving in prayer, the tears 
streaming down her cheeks. 

Daniel went up to her, and, pulling her shawl, said: 

" Madam, it was the hahy that did it." 



PAYING HIS VOW. 
The following incident is related by Mr. Carpenter, 

the artist : 

"Mr. Chase," says Mr. Carpenter, "told me that at 
the Cabinet meeting immediately after the battle of An- 
tietam, and just prior to the issue of the September 
proclamation, the President entered upon the business 
before them by saying that the time for the annuncia- 
tion of the emancipation policy could be no longer de- 
layed. Public sentiment would sustain it— many of his 
warmest friends and supporters demanded it— and he 
had promised his God he woidd do it. The last part of 
this was uttered in alow tone, and appeared to be heard 
by no one but Secretary Chase, who was sitting near 
him. He asked the President if he correctly understood 
him. Mr. Lincoln replied: ' I made a sokmn vow before 
God that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsyl- 
vania, I would crown the result by the declaration of free- 
dom to the slaves.' 

" In February, 1865, a few days after the Constitu- 
tional Amendment, I went to Washington, and was re- 
ceived by Mr. Lincoln with the kindness and familiarity 
which had characterized our previous intercourse. I 
said to him at this time that I was very proud to have 
been the artist to have first conceived the design of 
painting a picture commemorative of the Act of Eman- 



180 ■ ABRAHA3I LINCOLN. 

cipation ; that subsequent occurrences had only con- 
firmed my own first judgment of that act as the most 
sublime moral event in our history. * Yes,' said he — and 
never do I remember to have noticed in him more ear- 
nestness of expression or manner — ' as affairs have turned, 
it is the central act of my Administration^ and the great event 
of tlie nineteenth century y 



HOW LINCOLN RELIEVED ROSECRANS. 

General James B. Steedman, familiarly known 
as " Old Chickamauga," relates that some weeks after 
the disastrous battle of Chickamauga, while yet Chat- 
tanooga was in a state of siege, General Steedman was 
surprised one day to receive a telegram from Abraham 
Lincoln to come to Washington. Seeking out Thomas, 
he laid the telegram before him, and was instructed to 
set out at once. Repairing to the White House, he was 
warmly received by Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln's first 
question was abrupt and to the point : 

"General Steedman, what is your opinion of Gen- 
eral Rosecrans?" 

General Steedman, hesitating a moment, said: "Mr. 
President, I would rather not express my opinion of 
my superior officer." 

Mr. Lincoln said: "It is the man who does not 
want to express an opinion whose opinion I want. I 
am besieged on all sides with advice. Every day I get 
letters from army officers asking me to allow tliem to 
come to Washington to impart some valuable knowl- 
edge in their possession." 

"Well, Mr. President," said General Steedman, 



LINCOLNIANA. 



181 



"you are the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and if 
you order me to speak, I will do so." 

Mr. Lincoln said: "Then I will order an opinion." 
General Steedman then answered : "Since you com 
mand me, Mr. President, I will say General Rosecrans 
is a splendid man to command a victorious army." 

"But what kind of a man is he to command a de- 
feated army ?" said Mr. Lincoln. 

General Steedman in reply said, cautiously: "I 
think there are two or three men in that array who 
•would be better." 

Then, with his quaint humor, Mr. Lincoln pro- 
pounded this question: "Who, besides yourself. Gen- 
eral Steedman, is there in that army who would make 
a better commander?" 

General Steedman said promptly : " General George 
H. Thomas." 

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Mr. Lincoln ; 
" that is my own opinion exactly. But Mr. Stanton is 
against him, and it was only yesterday that a powerful 
New York delegation was here to protest against his ap- 
pointment because he is from a Rebel State and can not 
be trusted." 

Said General Steedman : "A man who will leave 
his own State [Thomas was a Virginian], his friends, 
all his associations, to follow the flag of his country, 
can be trusted in any position to which he may be 

called." 

That night the order went forth from Washington 
relieving General Rosecrans of the command of the 
Army of the Cumberland and appointing Thomas in 
his place. 



182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

SIGNING THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

The roll containing the Emancipation Proclamation 
was taken to Mr. Lincoln at noon on the first day of 
January, 1863, by Secretary Seward and his son Fred- 
erick. As it lay open before him, Mr. Lincoln took 
a pen, dipped it in ink, moved his hand to the place 
for the signature, held it a moment, then removed his 
hand and dropped the pen. After a little hesitation he 
again took up the pen, and went through the same 
movement as before. Mr. Lincoln then turned to Mr. 
Seward, and said : 

"I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock this 
morning, and my right arm is almost paralyzed. If my 
name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and 
my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I 
sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document 
hereafter will say, 'He hesitated.'" 

He then turned to the table, took up the pen again, 
and slowly, firmly wrote "Abraham Lincoln," with which 
signature the whole world is now familiar. He then 
looked up, smiled, and said: " That will do." 



LINCOLN AND STANTON. 

Mr. Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton first met in 
the summer of 1857. Mr. Lincoln represented a man 
named Manny, of Chicago, who had been sued by Mr. 
McCormick, the inventor of the reaping machine, for in- 
fringement of patent. The case was tried before Judge 
McLean in the United States Court at Cincinnati. 
Without Lincoln's knowledge, his client called George 
Harding, of Philadelphia, and Edwin M. Stanton, of 



LINCOLNIANA. 183 

the Cincinnati bar, though living at Pittsburg, into the 
case, assigning as the reason that the connection of 
Reverdy Johnson with the other side required men of 
Harding's and Stanton's knowledge and experience to 
cope with him. Stanton treated Lincoln with great 
rudeness. Lincoln overheard him ask, "Where did 
that loug-arraed creature come from, and what can he 
do in this case?" and then proceed to describe him as 
a " long, lank creature from Illinois, wearing a dirty 
linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the per- 
spiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a 
map of the continent." Before the final argument be- 
gan, one of the counsel moved that only two of the 
counsel speak, which was decided upon. It had been 
settled that Harding was to explain the mechanism of 
the machines. The motion therefore excluded Lincoln 
or Stanton. The custom of the bar would have de- 
cided the matter in Lincoln's favor without any further 
action. Stanton suggested to Lincoln that he make 
the speech. He answered: "No; you speak." Stan- 
ton promptly replied, " I will," and started off to make 
preparation. Lincoln felt deeply humiliated by this 
slight, but it did not prevent his calling to the most 
important position in his cabinet the man who had thus 
ignored and insulted him. 

Both men came to think more highly of each other 
in after years. When, a few days before the Presi- 
dent's assassination, Stanton tendered his resignation as 
Secretary of War, Lincoln tore the paper in pieces, 
threw his arms around the Secretary, and said: "Stan- 
ton, you have been a good friend and faithful public 
servant, and it is not for you to say when you will no 



184 A BRA HA M LINCOLN. 

longer be needed here." Mr. Carpenter says the scene 
was so affecting that it brought tears to the eyes of 
those who chanced to witness it. 

When Lincoln fell, Stanton was almost heart-broken, 
and, as he knelt by his side, was heard to say to himself: 
" Am I indeed left alone? None may now ever know 
or tell what we have suffered together in the Nation's 
darkest hours." When the surgeon-general said to him 
that there was no hope, he could not believe it, and 
passionately exclaimed: "No, no, General, no, no!" 



ON JEFFERSON DAVIS'S RECOMMENDATION. 

An interesting anecdote of President Lincoln is told 
by Mr. C. Eaton Creecy, a well-known lawyer of Wash- 
ington City, who was chief of the appointment divis- 
ion of the Treasury Department during the adminis- 
tration of President Johnson. 

Mr. Creecy, who was born in the city of Vicks- 
burg, Mississippi, held the position of messenger to the 
Secretary of the Treasury just prior to the close of the 
Buchanan Adn«unistration. Being of an ambitious turn 
of mind, he made application to President Buchanan to 
be appointed from Mississippi as cadet-at-large to the 
Military Academy at West Point. 

His mother, who was an energetic little Southern 
woman, entered heartily into her son's ambition, and 
obtained the recommendation of the Hon. Otho R. 
Singleton, Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, and other friends of her 
deceased husband, in favor of her sous appointment. 
These papers were filed ; but one very strong letter from 
Senator Jefferson Davis was not, because it was re- 



LINCOLNIANA. 185 

ceived just prior to the secession of Mississippi, and Mrs. 
Creecy did not press her son's application. 

In the fall of 1861, when the war was in full blast 
and a number of vacancies existed in the Military Acad- 
emy from the State of Mississippi, Mrs. Creecy de- 
termined to introduce herself to President Lincoln and 
ask him to appoint her son. She was received very 
politely by the President, who listened kindly and at- 
tentively to her. When she had concluded, he said : 

" Madam, you have the appearance and bearing of 
a lady ; but what evidence have I that you are not an 
impostor? I have so many of that class of people call- 
ing upon me every day that I am compelled to be very 
careful ; and while I do not wish you to infer that I 
doubt you, yet I must have some evidence that you are 
from Mississippi, and that your family is of standing 
and respectability, before I can consider the application 
you have made for your son's appointment." 

The little lady was wholly disconcerted by this un- 
expected turn of affairs. She little dreamed that any 
one would question her truthfulness or her respectability. 
So she left the Presidential presence very much dis- 
turbed, remarking that she did not see how she would 
be able to go to Mississippi through the army lines to 
get the evidence that Mr. Lincoln required. 

A happy thought occurred to her during the evening, 
and she resurrected the recommendation of United States 
Senator Jefferson Davis, and triumphantly carried it up 
to President Lincoln next day. He received her with 
a smile, and said : 

**I know by your countenance, madam, that you 
have brought the necessary evidence." 



186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"Yes, Mr. President," she said, "I have brought 
you a letter from an old friend of my husband, which 
I think will satisfy you," and she handed him Jefferson 
Davis's letter. 

For a few seconds the President seemed unable to 
state what his opinion was upon the recommendation, 
but he finally said to her : 

" Madam, the evidence that you have submitted to 
me is entirely satisfactory, and I will appoint your son, 
but on one condition, however, and that is that it is not 
to be known to any one but you and me that I did so 
upon the recommendation of Jefferson Davis." 

The appointment was ordered, but circumstances oc- 
curred soon thereafter which prevented Mr. Creecy from 
accepting it. 

MR. LINCOLN AND THE DRUMMER-BOY. 

Among a large number of persons waiting in the 
room to speak with Mr. Lincoln, on a certain day in 
November, 1864, was a small, pale, delicate-looking boy 
about thirteen years old. The President saw him stand- 
ing, looking feeble and faint, and said: "Come here, 
my boy, and tell me what you want." The boy ad- 
vanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President's 
chair, and with bowed head and timid accents said : 

" Mr. President, I have been a drummer in a regi- 
ment for two years, and my colonel got angry with me 
and turned me off. I was taken sick, and have been a 
long time in hospital. This is the first time I have been 
©ut, and I came to see if you could not do something 
for me." 

The President looked at him kindly and tenderly, 



LINCOLNIANA. 1^7 



and asked him where he lived. "I have no home,' 
answered the boy. "Where is your father?" "He 
died in the army," was the reply. "Where is your 
mother?" continued the President. "My mother is 
dead, too. I have no mother, no father, no brothers, no 
sisters, and," bursting into tears, " no friends-nobody 

cares for me." 

Mr. Lincoln's eyes filled with tears, and he said to 
him: "Can't you sell newspapers?" "No," said the 
boy, "I am too weak; and the surgeon of the hospital 
told me I must leave, and I have no money, and no 

place to go to." 

"The scene," says Rev. Mr. Henderson, "was won- 
derfully affecting." The President drew forth a card, 
and addressing on it certain officials to whom his request 
was law, gave special directions "to care for this poor 
boy " The wan face of the little drummer lit up with 
a happy smile as he received the paper, and he went 
away convinced that he had one good and true friend, 
at least, in the person of the President. 



THE NUMBER OF REBELS. 
]Mr. Lincoln sometimes had a very effective way of 
dealing with men who troubled him with questions. A 
visitor once asked him how many men the rebels had in 

the field. i.-r i 

The President replied, very seriously: iwelve 

hundred thousand, according to the best authority." 
The interrogator blanched in the face and ejaculated: 

•'Good heavens!" 

"Yes, sir, twelve hundred thousand— no doubt ot it, 



188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

You see, all of our generals, when they get whipped, 
say the enemy outnumbers them from three or five to 
one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred 
thousand men in the field, and three times four make 
twelve. Do n't you see it !" 

•♦■ 

MR. LINCOLN'S COLORED TROOPS. 

Honorable Frederick Douglass gives in the 
Northwestern Christian Advocate, Chicago, the following 
account of an interview with Mr. Lincoln : 

"I saw and conversed with this great man for the 
first time in the darkest hours of the military situation 
when the armies of the Rebellion seemed more confident, 
defiant, and aggressive than ever. I had never before 
had an interview with a President of the United States, 
and though I felt I had something important to say, 
considering his exalted position and my lowly origin and 
the people whose cause I came to plead, I approached 
him with much trepidation as to how this great man 
might receive me ; but one word and look from him 
banished all my fears, and set me perfectly at ease. I 
have often said since that meeting it was much easier 
to see and converse with a great man than a small man. 

" On that occasion he said : 

" ' Douglass, you need not tell me who you are ; Mr. 
Seward has told me all about you.' 

" I then saw that there was no reason to tell him my 
personal story, however interesting it might be to myself 
or others, so I told him at once the object of my visit. 
It was to get some expression from him on three points : 
1. Equal pay to colored soldiers. 2. Their promotion 
when they had earned it on the battle-field. 3. Should 



LINCOLNIANA. 189 

they be taken prisoners and enslaved or hanged, as 
Jefferson Davis had threatened, an equal number of 
Confederate prisoners should be executed within our 
lines. A declaration to this effect I thought would pre- 
vent the execution of the rebel threat. 

"To all but the last President Lincoln assented. 
He argued, however, that neither equal pay nor promo- 
tions could be granted at once. He said that in view 
of existing prejudices it was a great step forward to 
employ colored troops at all ; that it was necessary to 
avoid everything that would offend this prejudice and 
increase opposition to the measure. He detailed the 
steps by which white soldiers were reconciled to the em- 
ployment of colored troops ; how these were first em- 
ployed as laborers ; how it was thought they should not 
be armed or uniformed like white soldiers ; how they 
should only be made to wear a peculiar uniform ; how 
they should be employed to hold forts and arsenals 
in sickly locations, and not enter the field like other 
soldiers. With all these restrictions and limitations he 
easily made me see that much would be gained when 
the colored man loomed before the country as a full- 
fledged United States soldier to fight, flourish, or fall in 
defense of a united Republic. The great soul of Lin- 
coln halted only when he came to the point of retalia- 
tion. The thought of hanging men in cold blood, even 
though the rebels should murder a few of the colored 
prisoners, was a horror from which he shrank. 

" ' O, Douglass ! I can not do that. If I could get 
hold of the actual murderers of colored prisoners, I 
would retaliate ; but to hang those who had no hand in 
such murders, I can not.' 



190 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"The contemplation of such an act brought to hia 
countenance such an expression of sadness and pity that 
made it hard for me to press my point, though I told 
him it would tend to save rather than destroy life. He, 
however, insisted that this work of blood once begun 
would be hard to stop ; that such violence would beget 
violence. He argued more like a disciple of Christ than 
a commander-in-chief of the army and navy of a war- 
like nation already involved in a terrible war." 



DID NOT "STRIKE ILE." 

To Bishop Simpson, after a lecture on "American 

Progress," in which he did not speak of petroleum, Mr. 

Lincoln said, as he came out: "Bishop, you did not 

* strike ile.' " 

•♦• 

SEWARD AND CHASE. 

The antagonism between the conservatives, repre- 
sented in the Cabinet by Seward, and the radicals, rep- 
resented by Chase, was a source of much embarrassment 
to Mr. Lincoln. Finally, the radicals appointed a com- 
mittee to demand the dismissal of Seward. Before the 
committee arrived, Mr. Seward, in order to relieve the 
President of embarrassment, tendered his resignation. 
In the course of the discussion with the committee Mr. 
Lincoln so managed affairs that Mr. Chase found his 
position so embarrassing and equivocal that he thought 
it wise to tender his resignation the next day. 

Mr. Lincoln refused to accept either, stating that 
"the public interest does not admit of it." 

When it was all over he said: "Now I can ride; I 



LINCOLNIANA. 191 

have got a pumpkin in each end of my bag." Later on 
he said: "I do not see how it could have been done 
better. I am sure it was right. If I had yielded to 
that storm, and dismissed Seward, the thing would have 
slumped over one way, and we should have been left 
with a scanty handful of supporters." 



OLD FRIENDS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 

It -was during the dark days of 1863, on the evening 
of a public reception given at the White House. The 
foreign legations were there, gathered about the Presi- 
dent. A young English nobleman was just being pre- 
sented to the President. Inside the door, evidently 
overawed by the splendid assemblage, was an honest- 
faced old farmer, who shrank from the passing crowd 
until he and the plain-faced old lady clinging to his arm 
were pressed back to the wall. 

The President, tall, and, in a measure, stately in his 
personal presence, looking over the heads of the as- 
sembly, said to the English nobleman : " Excuse me, 
my lord, there's an old friend of mine." 

Passing backward to the door, Mr. Lincoln said, as 
he grasped the old farmer's hand: " Why, John, I 'm 
glad to see you. I have n't seen you since you and I 

made rails for old Mrs. , in Sangamon County, in 

1837. How are you ?" 

The old man turned to his wife with quivering lip, 
and, without replying to the President's salutation, said : 
" Mother, he's just the same old Abe." 

" Mr. Lincoln," he said finally, " you know we had 
three boys ; they all enlisted in the same company ; 



192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

John was killed in the ' Seven-days' fight ;' Sara was 
taken prisoner and starved to death ; and Henry is in 
the hospital. We had a little money, an' I said : 
' Mother, we '11 go to Washington an' see him.' An' 
while we were here, I said, we '11 go up and see the 
President." 

Mr. Lincoln's eyes grew dim, and across his rugged, 
homely, tender face swept the wave of sadness his 
friends had learned to know, and he said : " John, we 
all hope this miserable war will soon be over. I must 
see all these folks here for an hour or so, and I want to 
talk with you." 

The old lady and her husband were hustled into a 
private room in spite of their j^rotests. 



THE JUDGE'S COACHMAN. 

Attorney-General Bates was once remonstrating 
with the President against the appointment to a judi- 
cial position of considerable importance of a Western 
man, who, though on the " bench," was of indifferent 
reputation as a lawyer. 

" Well, now, Judge," returned Mr. Lincoln, " I 

think you are rather too hard on . Besides that, 

I must tell you, he did me a good turn long ago. When 
I took to the law, I was walking to court one morning, 
with some ten or twelve miles of bad road before me, 
when overtook me in his wagon. 

" ' Hello, Lincoln !' said he ; ' going to the court- 
house ? Come in, and I will give you a seat' 

" Well, I got in, and went on reading his 

papers. Presently the wagon struck a stump on one 



LINCOLNIANA. 193 

side of the road ; then it hopped off to the other. I 
looked out and saw the driver was jerking from side to 
side in his seat ; so said I, * Judge, I think your coach- 
man has been taking a drop too much this morning.' 

" * Well, I declare, Lincoln,' said he, ' I should not 
much wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset 
me half a dozen times since starting.' So, putting his 
head out of the window, he shouted : ' Why, you in- 
fernal scoundrel, you are drunk !' 

" Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning 
round with great gravity, the coachman said : ' Be dad! 
but that's the first rightful decision your honor has 
given for the last twelve months !* " 



BISHOP SIMPSON AND LINCOLN. 

" One day, in the darkest time of the war," said 
Bishop Simpson to Chaplain C. C. McCabe, " I called 
to see Mr. Lincoln. We talked long and earnestly 
about the situation. When I rose to go, Mr. Lincoln 
steppad to the door, and turned the key, and said : 
' Bishop, I feel the need of prayer as never before. 
Please pray for me.' And so we knelt down in that 
room together, and all through the prayer the President 
responded most fervently." 



CUTTING RED TAPE. 

" Upon entering the President's office one after- 
noon," says a Washington correspondent, " I found Mr. 
Lincoln busily counting greenbacks. 

" 'This, sir,' said he, ' is something out of my usual 
13 



194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

iine ; but a President of the United States has a multi- 
plicity of duties not specified in the Constitution or acts 
of Congress. This is one of them. This money belongs 
to a poor Negro who is a porter in the Treasury De- 
partment, at present very bad with the smallpox. He 
is now in hospital, and could not draw his pay because 
he could not sign his name. I have been at considerable 
trouble to overcome the difficulty and get it for him, 
and have at length succeeded in cutting red tape, as you 
newspaper men say. I am now dividing the money, 
and putting by a portion labeled, in an envelope, with 
my own hands, according to his wish ;' and he pro- 
ceeded to indorse the package very carefully." 



A POINTED ILLUSTRATION. 

At the White House one day some gentlemen were 
present from the West, excited and troubled about the 
commissions or omissions of the Admiuistx'ation. The 
President heard them patiently, and then replied : 
" Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth 
was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Bloudin 
to carry across the Niagara River on a rope, would you 
shake the cable, or keep shouting out to him, ' Blondin, 
stand up a little straighter !— Bloudin, stoop a little more ! — 
go a little faster ! — lean a little more to the north ! — lean 
a little more to the south ?' No ! you would hold your 
breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off 
until he was safe over. The Government is carrying an 
immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. 
They are doing the very best they can. Do n't badger 
them. Keep silence, and we '11 get you safe across." 



LINCOLNIANA. 195 



TAD" AND HIS FRIEND. 



Tad Lincoln won the good- will of everybody by 
his .ready sympathy with all classes aud conditions of 
people. He once noticed a wounded soldier hanging 
about the gates of the Executive mansion, hoping to see 
the President, to whom access was denied, it having 
been given out that no soldiers were to be discharged on 
any account. This veteran believed that he would not 
recover, and was anxious to see his family before he 
died. Tad saw him, and, on learning what was the 
matter, led him into the Executive mansion. They were 
stopped by a sentinel at the door of the President's 
office, but Tad shouted in his loudest boyish voice : 
" Father, let me and my friend in !" Mr. Lincoln 
never could deny Tad anything, even when he was most 
busy, and the boy entered the room leading the cripnled 
and sick soldier, for whom Mr. Lincoln immediately 
wrote out an honorable discharge. 



TRYING THE GREENS. 

A DEPUTATION of bankers were one day introduced 
to the President by the Secretary of the Treasury. One 
of the party, Mr. P , of Chelsea, Mass., took occa- 
sion to refer to the severity of the tax laid by Congress 
upon the State banks. 

"Now," said Mr. Lincoln, "that reminds nje of a 
circumstance that took place in a neighborhood where I 
lived when I was a boy. In the spring of the year the 
farmers were very fond of the dish which they called 
greens, though the fashionable name for it nowadays is 
spinach, I believe. One day after dinner a large family 



196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

were taken very ill. The doctor was called in, who at- 
tributed it to the greens, of which all had freely par- 
taken. Living in the family was a half-witted boy 
named Jake. On a subsequent occasion, when greeus 
had been gathered for dinner, the head of the house 
said : ' Now, boys, before running any further risk in 
this thing, we will first try them on Jake. If he stands 
it, we are all right.' And just so, I suppose," said Mr. 
Lincoln, " Congress thought it would try this tax on 
the State banks." 

MR. LINCOLN AND THE GOVERNNflENT PRINTER. 

Mr. Defrees, the Government printer, states that 
when one of the President's Messages was being printed, 
he was a good deal disturbed, by the use of the term 
"sugar-coated," and went to Mr, Lincoln about it. He 
told the President frankly that he ought to remember 
that a message to Congress was a different affliir from 
a speech at a mass-meeting in Illinois; that it became a 
part of history, and should be written accordingly. 

"What is the matter now?" inquired the President. 

"Why," said Mr. Defrees, "you have used an un- 
dignified expression in the message;" and, then, reading 
the paragraph aloud, he added, " I would alter the 
structure of that, if I were you." 

"Defrees," replied Mr. Lincoln, "that word ex- 
presses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change 
it. The time will never come in this country when the 
people won't know exactly what sugar-coated means." 

On another occasion Mr. Defrees called the Presi- 
dent's attention to an awkward sentence in the proof- 
copy of a message. Lincoln acknowledged the force ot 



LINCOLNIANA. 197 

the objection, and said: "Go home, Defrees, and see if 
you can better it." 

The next day Mr. Defrees took to him his amend- 
ment. Mr. Lincoln met him by saying : "Seward found 
the same fault that you did, and he has been rewriting 
the paragraph, also." Then, reading Mr. Defrees's ver- 
sion, he said: "I believe you have beaten Seward; but 
'by jings,' I think I can beat you both." 

Then, taking up his pen, he wrote the sentence as it 
was finally printed. 

=4" 

LINCOLN'S ADVICE TO LORD LYONS. 

Upon the betrothal of the Prince of Wales to the 
Princess Alexandra, Queen Victoria sent a letter to 
President Lincoln, announcing the fact. Lord Lyons, 
her ambassador at Washington, who was a bachelor, re- 
quested an audience of Mr. Lincoln, that he might pre- 
sent this important document in person. At the time 
appointed, he was received at the White House, in com- 
pany with Mr. Seward. 

" May it please Your Excellency," said Lord Lyons, 
" I hold in my hand an autograph letter from my royal 
mistress. Queen Victoria, which I have been commanded 
to present to Your Excellency. In it she informs Your 
Excellency that her sou. His Royal Highness, the Prince 
of Wales, is about to contract a matrimonial alliance 
with Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra, of 
Denmark." 

After continuing in this strain for a few minutes. 
Lord Lyons tendered the letter to the President, and 
awaited his reply. It consisted simply of the words : 

"Lord Lyons, go thou and do likexvise." 



198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

It is not known how the English ambassador suc- 
ceeded in putting the reply in diplomatic language 
when he reported it to Her Majesty. 



WITHOUT A GREAT POLICY. 

Senator John M. Palmer, of Illinois, relates the 
following: 

"I called on Mr. Lincoln at nine o'clock. I sat in 
the anteroom a long time, while Buckingham, of Con- 
necticut, walked in and out of Lincoln's room several 
times. At last Buckingham left, aud I went in. I 
found Lincoln with a towel around his neck, getting 
ready to shave. 

" ' Got to get shaved some time. Palmer,' he said. 
* I could n't shave while Buckingham was here ; but you 
are home-folks, aud it does n't matter with home-folks.' 

*' We chatted till the barber reached his mouth, when 
he could n't talk without running the risk of getting cut. 
There was a pause. During it I thought of the great 
war that was going on, and of the man near me con- 
ducting it. 

" * Mr. Lincoln,' I said, ' if I had known there was 
going to be so great a rebellion, I should never have 
thought of going to a one-horse town for a one-horse 
lawyer for President.' 

"Lincoln stretched forth his arms, pushed the bar- 
ber aside, and abruptly wheeled around to me. I 
thought he was angry because of what I had said. But 
he replied : 

" ' Nor I either. Its lucky for this country no man 
was chosen who had a great policy, and would have 



LINCOLNIANA. ^^^ 



stuck to it. If such a man had been chosen, this re- 
bellion would never have reached a successful conclu- 
sion. I have had no great policy ; but I have tried to 
do my duty every day, hoping that the morrow would 
find that I had done right.'" 

.if. • 

LINCOLN'S SECOND NOMINATION. 
The dispatch announcing Lincoln's renomination for 
President had been sent to his office from the War De- 
partment while he was at lunch. Afterwanl, without 
goin- back to the official chamber, he proceeded to the 
War" Department. While there, the telegram came in 
announcing the nomination of Johnson. 

"What!" said he to the operator, "do they nomi- 
nate a Vice-President before they do a President?" 

"Why!" rejoined the astonished official, "have you 
not heard of your own nomination? It was sent to the 
White House two hours ago." 

"It is all right," was the reply; "I shall probably 

find it on my return." 

•<p° 

MR. LINCOLN'S REMEDY FOR BALDNESS. 
In 1864 Mr. Lincoln was greatly bothered by the 
well-meant but ill-advised efforts of certain good North- 
ern men to bring about a termination of the war. An 
old gentleman from Massachusetts, very bland and en- 
tirely bald, was especially persistent and troublesome 
Again and again he appeared before the President and 
was got rid of by one and another ingenious expedient. 
One day, when this angel of mercy had been boruig 
Mr. Lincoln for half an hour, to the interruption ot 



200 ABRAHAM LTNCOLlSr. 

important business, the President suddenly arose, went 
to a closet, and took out of it a large bottle. " Did you 
ever try this remedy for baldness?" he asked, holding 
up the bottle before his astonished visitor. No ; the 
man Avas obliged to confess that he never had tried it. 
Mr. Lincoln called a servant, had the bottle wrapped 
up, and handed it to the l)ald philanthropist. 

" There," said he, " go and rub some of that on your 
head. Persevere. They say it will make your hair 
grow. Come back in about three months and report." 
And almost before he knew it the good man was out- 
side of the door, with the package under his arm. 



WITHOUT INFLUENCE. 



To A poor woman who desired his signature to a 
paper, Lincoln said: "My name will do you no more 
good than pigs' tracks in the mud." 



"TAD" AND HIS FATHER. 

"The day after the review of Burnside's division, 
some photographers," says Mr. Carpenter, "came up to 
tlie White House to make some stereoscopic studies for 
me of the President's office. They requested a dark 
closet in which to develop the pictures; and, without a 
thought that I was infringing upon anybody's rights, I 
took them to an unoccupied room of which little Tad 
had taken possession a few days before, and, with the 
aid of a couple of the servants, had fitted up as a min- 
iature theater, with stage, curtains, orchestra, stalls, par- 
quet, and all. Knowing that the use required would 



LINCOLNIANA. 201 

interfere with none of his arrangements, I le.a the way 
to this apartment. 

"Everything went on well, and one or two pictures 
had been taken, when suddenly there was an uproar. 
The operator came back to the office, and said that 
Tad had taken great offense at the occupation of his 
room without his consent, and had locked the door, re- 
fusing all admission. The chemicals had been taken 
inside, and there was no way of getting at them, he 
having carried off the key. In the midst of this con- 
versation, Tad burst in, in a fearful passion. He laid 
all the blame upon me ; said that I had no right to use 
his room, and the men should not go in, even to get 
their things. He had locked the door, and they should 
not go there again — 'they had no business in his 
room !' 

"Mr. Lincoln was sitting for a photograph, and was 
still in the chair. He said, very mildly: 'Tad, go and 
unlock the door.' Tad went off muttering into his 
mother's room, refusing to obey. I followed him into 
the passage; but no coaxing would pacify him. Upon 
my return to the President, I found him still sitting pa- 
tiently in the chair, from which he had not risen. He 
said: 'Has not the boy opened the door?' I replied 
that we could do nothing with him ; he had gone off in 
a great pet. Mr. Lincoln's lips came together firmly, 
and then, suddenly rising, he strode across the passage 
with the air of one bent on punishment, and disappeared 
in the domestic apartments. Directly he returned with 
the key to the tlieater, which he unlocked himself. 
'There,' said he, 'go ahead; it is all right now.' He 
then went back to his office, followed by myself, and 



202 ABB AHA M LINCOLN. 

resumed his seat. 'Tad,' said he, half-apologetically, 
' is a peculiar child. He was violently excited when 1 
went to him. I said : " Tad, do you know you are 
making your father a great deal of trouble?" He burst 
into tears, instantly giving me up the key."* 



LINCOLN'S OPINION OF GRANT. 

In a letter to a friend, in March, 1864, Lincoln 
wrote: "I hardly know what to think of him [Grant] 
altogether. He is the quietest little fellow you ever 
knew. Why, he makes the least fuss of any man you 
ever knew. I believe two or three times he has been 
in this room a minute or so before I knew he was here. 
It 's about so all around. The only evidence you have 
that he 's in any place is that he makes things git. 
Wherever he is, things move. Grant is the first gen- 
eral I 've had. He 's a general. I '11 tell you what I 
mean. You know how it's been with all the rest. As 
soon as I put a man in command of the army, he 'd 
come to me with a plan of campaign, and about as much 
as say, ' Now, I do n't believe I can do it ; but, if you 
say so, I '11 try it on,' and so put the responsibility of 
success or failure on me. They all wanted me to be 
general. Now, it isn't so with Grant. He ha.s n't told 
me what his plans are. I do n't know, and I do n't want 
to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead 
without me. You see, when any of the rest set out on 
a campaign, they 'd look over matters, and pick out 
some one thing they were short of, and they knew I 
could n't give 'em, and tell me they could n't hope to 
win unless they had it ; and it was most generally the 



LINCOINIANA. 203 

cavalry. Now, when Grant took hold, I was waiting to 
see what his pet impossibility would be ; and I reckoned 
it would be cavalry, as a matter of course, for we had n't 
horses enough to mount what men we had. There were 
fifteen thousand or thereabouts up near Harper's Ferry, 
and no horses to put them on. Well, the other day, 
Grant sends to me about those very men, just as I ex- 
pected ; but what he wanted to know was whether he 
should make infantry of them, or discharge them. He 
does n't ask impossibilities of me ; and he 's the first 
general I 've had who did n't." 



THE "PEACE CONFERENCE." 

At the "Peace Conference," held on the steamer 
River Queen, in Hampton Roads, February 3, 1865, be- 
tween the President and Mr. Seward, representing the 
Government, and Messrs. Alexander H. Stephens, J. A. 
Campbell, and R. M. T. Hunter, representing the Con- 
federacy, Mr. Hunter stated that the recognition of JeflT 
Davis's power was the first and indispensable step to 
peace; and, to illustrate his point, he referred to the 
correspondence between King Charles the First and his 
Parliament as a reliable precedent of a constitutional 
ruler treating with rebels. 

" Upon questions of history," replied Lincoln, " I 
must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted in such 
things, and I do n't profess to be ; but my only dis- 
tinct recollection of the matter is that Charles lost his 
head." 

Mr. Hunter declared, on the same occasion, that the 
slaves, always accustomed to work upon compulsion, 



204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

under an overseer, would, if suddenly freed, precipitate 
not only themselves but the society of the South into 
ruin. No work would be done, but blacks and whites 
would starve together. Mr. Lincoln waited for Mr, 
Seward to answer the argument ; but as that gentleman 
hesitated he said : 

"Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal 
better about this matter than I, for you have always 
lived under the slave system. I can only say, in reply 
to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a 
man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who under- 
took, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of 
hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them ; and how to 
get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit 
upon the plan of planting an immense field of potatoes, 
and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned the 
whole herd into the field, and let them have full swing, 
thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but 
that also of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his 
sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, 
counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along : 

"'Well, well,' said he, 'Mr. Case, this is all very 
fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now ; but you 
know out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the 
ground freezes a foot deep. Then what are they going 
to do?' 

" This was a view of the matter which Mr. Case had 
not taken into account. Butchering time for hogs was 
away on in December or January. He scratched his 
head, and at length stammered : 

" ' Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, 
but I do n't see but it will be root hog or die!'" 



LINCOLNIANA. 205 



NOT AFRAID OF BEING HANGED. 
"When Mr Lincoln returned from the James, where 
he met Messrs. Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, he 
related to his Cabinet some of his conversations with 
them He said," writes Mr. Usher, "that at the con- 
clusion of one of his discourses, detailing what he con- 
sidered to be the position in which the insurgents were 
placed bv the law, they replied : 

- ' Well, according to your view of the case, we are 

all guilty of treason, and liable to be haiiged.' 

" Lincoln replied : ' Yes, that is so. ' 

-They, continuing, said: 'Well, we suppose that 

would necessarily be your view of our case, but we 

never had much fear of being hanged while you were 

President.' » „ 

"From his manner in repeating this scene, says 
Mr Usher, "he seemed to appreciate the compliment 
hiehly There is no evidence in his record that he ever 
contemplated executing any of the insurgents for their 
treason. There is no evidence that he desired any ot 
them to leave the country, with the exception o Mr. 
Davis. His great, and apparently his only object, was 
to have a restored Union." 



-+- 



PROPOSED PURCHASE OF SLAVES. 
Soon after Mr. Lincoln's return from his conference 
with Alexander Stephens and others in regard to the 
ending of the war, the Cabinet was convened and he 
read to it, for approval, a message which he had pre- 
pared to be submitted to Congress, in which he recom- 
mended that Congress appropriate $300,000,000, to be 



206 ABRAHAM LINCOLK 

apportioned among the several slave States, in proportion 
to slave population, to be distributed to the holders of 
slaves in those States, upon condition that they would 
consent to the abolition of slavery, the disbanding of 
the insurgent array, and would acknowledge and submit 
to tlie laws of the United States. 

The members of the Cabinet were all opposed. 
He seemed somewhat surprised at that, and asked : 
"How long will the war last?" No one answered, 
but he soon said : " A hundred days. We are spending 
now in carrying on the war $3,000,000 a day, which 
will amount to all this money, besides all the lives." 
With a deep sigh, he added : " But you are all opposed 
to me, and I will not send the message." 



LINCOLN'S ONE WORD. 

" Almost with tears in his eyes," said Judge Samuel 
B. Herit, of Suwauee, Fla., "Alexander H. Stephens 
once told me of the inner history of the Hampton Roads 
Conference. 

"'When the intimation came to us,' said Mr. 
Stephens, ' that the Federals desired a conference, it was 
well known that Jefferson Davis was opposed to it. 
The majority of the Confederate Senate took its cue 
from the President, and therefore the subject could not 
be directly broached then. As a consequence, we were 
forced to strategy. It was proposed that General Lee 
should appear before the Senate in executive session, 
and, under the cloak of secrecy, to be removed only for 
the personal information of the President, give an exact 
statement of the real position of the two armies. 



LINCOLNIAXA. 207 

***With great reluctance General Lee consented to 
answer questions, the result being to show that the Con- 
federate army had been reduced to a mere shell, with 
neither defenses, refuge, nor supplies to fall back upon. 
With this plain statement the Senate consented to the 
appointment of Peace Commissioners. But when a 
resolution was offered and passed that these Commission- 
ers should act under instructions given by Mr. Davis, 
all hope in my heart failed. Only the conviction that I 
should lose no chance to bring about peace, induced me 
to withhold. ray resignation.' 

"After describing the meeting with President Lin- 
coln and associates," continued Judge Herit, "Mr. 
Stephens went on to say : ' Finally, all preliminaries 
over. President Lincoln said: "So anxious am I for 
peace, that I will offer terms which I am sure will sur- 
prise you. On this sheet of paper I will write but one 
word, while I will leave to your own judgment every 
other condition and requirement." Writing, Mr. Lin- 
coln passed the sheet over to me, and I found written 
upon it the one word "Union." "All other terms," 
concluded INIr. Lincoln, " may be of your own dictation." 

"'My heart sank within me,' said Mr. Stephens. 
' Here, on simply accepting the Union, we could dictate 
our own terms of peace, preserve our State autonomies, 
maintain our fortunes, gain recompense for our slave 
property, and all the consequences following defeat 
could be averted. But our instructions from Mr. Davis, 
the corner-stone of which was the recognition of the 
Confederate States, forbade the acceptance of this most 
magnanimous and generous offer. When I so informed 
Mr. Lincoln, he sank back in his chair with a look of 



208 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

utter disappointment. We all felt the gravity of the 
situation, and it was recognized that one of the great 
mistakes of history was being enacted. With an array 
whose defeat was already acknowledged by General Lee, 
President Davis insisted upon annihilation.' 

" These facts," continued Judge Herit, " it was agreed 
should be kept secret until the death of the principals." 



PERMITTING JACOB THOMPSON TO SLIP THROUGH MAINE. 

Upon Mr. Lincoln's return to Washington, after 
the capture of Richmond, a member of the Cabinet 
asked him if it would be proper to permit Jacob 
Thompson, one of the Confederate leaders, to slip 
through Maine in disguise, and embark from Portland. 
The President, as usual, was disposed to be merciful, 
and to permit the arch-rebel to pass unmolested, but 
the secretary urged that he should be arrested as a 
traitor. "By permitting him to escape the penalties of 
treason," persistently remarked the secretary, "you 
sanction it." 

"Well," replied Mr. Lincoln, "let me tell you a 
story. 

"There was an Irish soldier here last summer who 
wanted something to drink stronger than water, and 
stopped at a drug-shop, where he espied a soda-fountain. 

"'Mr. Doctor,' said he, 'give me, plase, a glass 
of soda-wather, an' if yees can put in a few drops of 
whisky unbeknown to any one, I'll be obleeged.' 

"Now," said Mr. Lincoln, "if Jake Thompson is 
permitted to go through Maine unbeknown to any one, 
Avhat's the harm? So don't have him arrested." 



LINCOLNIANA. 209 

WHAT TO DO WITH JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

One of Mr. Lincoln's stories was told to a party of 
gentlemen, who, as the war was closing, anxiously 
asked: "What will you do with Jefferson Davis?" 

"There was a boy in Springfield," replied ]\Ir. 
Lincoln, " who saved up his money and bought a ' coon,' 
which, after the novelty wore off, became a great 
nuisance. 

"He was one day leading him through the streets, 
and had his hands full to keep clear of the little vixen, 
who had torn his clothes half off of him. At length 
he sat down on the cui-b-stoue, completely fagged out. 
A man passing was stopped by the lad's disconsolate ap- 
pearance, and asked the matter. 

" ' O,' was the only reply, ' this coon is such a trouble 
to me.' 

"'Why don't you get rid of him, then?' said the 
gentleman. 

" ' Hush !' said the boy ; ' do n't you see he is gnaw- 
ing his rope of}7 I am going to let him do it, and then 
I will go home and tell the folks that he got away from 
me !' " 



MR. LINCOLN'S BARGAIN WITH TAD. 

"Tad" accompanied his father to Fortress Monroe, 
and on the way became very troublesome. The Presi- 
dent was much engaged in conversation with the party 
who accompanied him, and he at length said : 

"Tad, if you will be a good boy, and not disturb 
me any more till we get to Fortress Monroe, I will give 
you a dollar." 

The hope of reward was effectual for a while in se- 
14 



210 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

curing silence, but Tad soon forget his promise, and be- 
came as noisy as ever. Upon reaciiing their destination, 
however, he said, very promptly: "Father, I want my 
dollar." 

Mr. Lincoln turned to him with the inquiry : " Tad, 
do you think you have earned it?" 

" Yes," was the reply. 

Mr. Lincoln looked at him half-reproachfully for an 
instant, and then taking from his pocket-book a dollar 
note, he said: " Well, my son, at any rate, I will keep 
my part of the bargain." 



RECEIVING DISPATCHES FROM SHERMAN. 

On New- Year's day, 1865, General C. H. Howard 
left Savannah, Georgia, with important dispatches from 
General Sherman to President Lincoln. 

Sherman had sent his unique telegram to the Presi- 
dent on Christmas eve, announcing as a Christmas 
present the capture of Savannah. Owing to the fact 
that the railroads had been destroyed, this dispatch had 
been sent by special steamer to Fortress Monroe and 
thence by telegraph to Washington. But President 
Lincoln had not yet seen any person who had marched 
through Georgia with Sherman. 

" It was early in the day," writes General Howard in 
the Northioestern Christian Advocate, "when my card was 
given to the messenger in the anteroom of the White 
House. He shook his head, and pointed to the crowds 
in waiting, filling the anteroom and thronging even the 
lower hall and the stairway. He called my attention 
to the fact that there were Congressmen of the number 



LINCOLNIANA. 211 

who were supposed to have precedence in calling upon 
the President. Nevertheless, I requested him to give 
the President the card which indicated that I had dis- 
patches from Sherman's army. 

"The messenger returned within a few minutes and 
invited me in. First, we entered a room occupied by the 
President's secretaries, and there I saw one or two 
senators in waiting, and passing through this room I 
was ushered into a smaller room, where I saw President 
Lincoln standing at a glass shaving himself. He paused 
a moment, came to me with a droll look, heightened no 
doubt by the half-lathered, half-shaved face, gave me 
his hand, and asked me to take a seat on the sofa, say- 
ing, as he returned to the mirror : 

*' ' I could not even Avait till I had finished shaving 
when an officer from Sherman's army has come.' 

"Of course the youthful staff-officer was somewhat 
abashed in coming into the presence of the President of 
the United States, his Commander-in-chief, and the now 
world-reuowned Abraham Lincoln. But the President's 
frank and cordial manner when, on the completion of 
his toilet, he came and took the right hand of his vis- 
itor between both of his large hands and then sat down 
beside him on the sofa immediately put him at his 
ease. 

"Naturally, the President had many questions to 
ask concerning the ' March to the Sea.' It was appar- 
ent he had been very anxious, as no doubt had the 
entire North, during the thirty days or more when noth- 
ing was heard from the vanished array. He was inter- 
ested to know in detail of the daily operations. Ac- 
tually, the first word indicating the approach to the 



212 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

coast came by a small scouting party sent down the 
Ogeechee River by Major-General Howard, commanding 
Sherman's right wing. An officer and two scouts had 
made their way in a dug-out down the river, moving by 
night and resting by day, past the Rebel pickets, past 
Fort McAlister — then armed with heavy guns, and fully 
manned — out into the open bay, and had communicated 
with the naval blockading fleet, and the admiral had 
sent General Howard's dispatch to the Secretary of the 
Navy at Washington. This news was not only the first 
to advise President Lincoln of the safety and success of 
Sherman's army, but had been flashed over the country, 
bringing good cheer to 65,000 homes which had rep- 
resentatives in that army." 



TAD'S REBEL FLAG. 

One of the prettiest incidents in the closing days of 
the Civil War occurred when the troops, " marching 
home again," passed, in grand form, if with well-worn 
uniforms and tattered bunting, before the White House, 
in Washington City. Naturally, an immense crowd 
had assembled on the streets, the lawns, porches, 
balconies, and windows, even those of the Executive 
mansion itself being crowded to excess. A central 
figure was that of the President, Abraham Lincoln, 
who, with bared head, unfurled and waved our Nation's 
flag in the midst of lusty cheers. 

Suddenly there was an unexpected sight. A small 
boy leaned forward, and sent streaming to the air the 
banner of the boys in gray. It was an old flag which 
had been captured from the Confederates, and which 



LINCOLNIANA. 213 

the urchin, the President's second son, Tad, had obtained 
possession of, and considered an additional token of 
triumph to unfurl on this all-important day. Vainly 
did the servant who had followed him to the window 
plead with him to desist. No. Master Tad, the pet of 
the White House, was not to be prevented from adding 
to the loyal demonstration of the hour. To his sur- 
prise, however, the crowd viewed it differently. 

Had it floated from any other window in the capital 
that day, no doubt it would have been the target of 
contempt and abuse ; but when the President, under- 
standing what had happened, turned, with a smile on 
his grand, plain face, and showed his approval by a ges- 
ture and expression, cheer after cheer rent the air. It 
was, surely enough, the expression of peace and good- 
will which, of all our commanders, none was better 
pleased to promote than the Commander-in-chief. 



' A WOODCHOPPER'S SON. 

"Tad "Lincoln was his father's idol and constant 
companion. Scarcely a day but he could be seen trudg- 
ing along the country roads near their summer home, 
or in the city itself, his small figure in comical contrast 
to the President's tall, lank form. In these walks they 
had chats which were to the boy as precious memories. 

An incident, which Tad himself related, occurred 
a day or two after his entering, temporarily, a foreign 
school. A rather snobbish young gentleman of rank, 
not knowing who young Lincoln was, inquired, as boys 
will of each other, who his father was. Tad, with the 
slow, reflective smile which was his sole point of resem- 



214 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

blauce to his father, answered: "A woodchopper." 
" O, indeed!" was the rather sneering answer And 
for a day or two the high-born lad turned the cold 
shoulder to the " new boy." Very soon the American 
lad's prestige became known to all the school, and he 
found that he had made himself ridiculous. 



LAST PUBLIC UTTERANCE. 

Mr. Lincoln's last public utterance was addressed 
to Schuyler Colfax, April 14, 1865: " I want you to 
take a message from me to the miners whom you 
visit. . . . Tell the miners for me that I shall pro- 
mote their interests to the utmost of my ability, because 
their prosperity is the prosperity of the Nation ; and 
we shall prove, in a very few years, that we are indeed 
the treasury of the world." 



MY CAPTAIN. 



CAPTAIN ! my captain ! our fearful trip is done ; 

The ship has weathered every rock, the prize we sought is 

won ; 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
"While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
daring : 

But, O heart ! heart ! heart ! 

Leave you not the little spot, 

Where on the deck my captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead. 

O captain ! my captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills , 

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowdiug ; 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
turning : 

captain ! dear father ; 

This arm I push beneath you ; 

It is some dream that on the deck 

You 've fallen cold and dead. 

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; 
But the ship, the ship is anchored safe, its voyage closed 

and done ; 
From fearfvil trip, the victor ship comes in with object won. 

Exult, O shore, and ring, bells 1 

But I, with silent tread, 

AValk the spot my captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead. 
n, r —Walt Whitman, ou the Death of Lincoln. 



\^^ORDS OF LINCOLN. 

"My early history is perfectly characterized by a 
single line of Gray's Elegy : 

' The short aud simple annals of the poor.' " 
X X 

"Men are not flattered by being shown that there 
has been a difference of purpose between them and the 

Almighty." 

X X 

"I know that the Lord is always on the side of the 
right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I 
and this Nation should be on the Lord's side." 

X X 

" I have been driven many times to my knees by 
the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to 
go. INIy own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed 
insufficient for that day." 

X X 

"We can not escape history." 
X X 

" The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must 
prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately 
perceive them in advance." 

X X 
"Come what will, I will keep my faith with friena 
and foe." 
216 



WORDS OF LINCOLK 217 

"I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed 

to me." 

X X 

"It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one." 
X X 

"I shall do my utmost, that whoever is to hold the 
helm for the next voyage shall start with the best possi- 
ble chance to save the ship." 

X X 
" I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's 
bosom." 

X X 
"God must like common people, or he would not 
have made so mauy of them." 

X X 
" Of the people, when they rise in mass in behalf of 
the Uuion and the liberties of their country, truly may 
it be said : ' The gates of hell can not prevail against 
them.'" 

X X 

"Unless the great God . . . shall be with and 
aid me, I must fail ; but if the same Omniscient Mind 
and Almighty Arm . . . shall guide and support 
me, I shall not fail ; I shall succeed." 
X X 
"I authorize no bargains [for the Presidency], and 
will be bound by none." 

X X 

"The reasonable man has long since agreed that in- 
temperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of 
all evils among mankind." 



218 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

* ' I am indeed very grateful to the brave men who 
have been struggling with the enemy in the field." 
X X 
"For thirty years I have been a temperance man, 
and I am too old to change." 
X X 
"That we here highly resolve that . . . this 
Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, 
and that the government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
X X 

"I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind 
that with you [the people], and not with politicians, 
not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but with 
you, is the question. Shall the Union and shall the lib- 
erties of the country be preserved to the latest gen- 
eration ?" 

X X 

" If all that has been said by orators and poets since 
the creation of the world in praise of women were ap- 
plied to the women of America, it would not do them 
full justice for their conduct during the war. . . . 
God bless the women of America 1" 

X X 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the 
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to 
bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who shall 
have borne the battle, and for his widow and his or- 
phan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 



WORDS OF LINCOLN. 219 

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it." 

X X 

"I have never had a feeling politically that did not 
spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration 
of Independence." 

X X 

"No men living are more worthy to be trusted than 
those who toil up from poverty — none less inclined to 
take or touch aught which they have not honestly 
earned." 

X X 

" Let us have faith that right makes might ; and, 
in that faith, let us to the end dare to do our duty as 
we understand it." 

X X 

" There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress 
by mob law." 

X X 

"Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for 
any task they may undertake, may ever be found, whose 
ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Con- 
gress, a gubernatorial, or a Presidential chair ; but such 
belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the 
eagle." 

X X 

*' Nowhere in the world is presented a Government 
of so much liberty and equality." 

X X 

"Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, and 
patriotic men are better than gold." 



220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" Let none falter who thinks he is right." 

X X 

"All that I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to my 
angel mother." 

X X 

"The way for a young man to rise is to improve 
himself every way he can, never suspecting that any- 
body wishes to hinder him." 

X X 

"Suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in 
any situation." 

X X 

"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. 

Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I 

have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed 

of ray fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their 

esteem." 

X X 

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's na- 
ture — opposition to it in his love of justice." 

X X 

" Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with 

him while he is right, and part with him when he goes 

wrong." 

X X 

" Revolutionize through the ballot-box." 
X X 

"If I live, this accursed system of robbery and 
shame in our treatment of the Indians shall be re- 
formed." 



WORDS OF LINCOLN. 221 

*' This Government must be preserved in spite of the 
acts of any man, or set of men." 



X 



"Many free countries have lost their liberty, and 
ours may lose hers; but, if she shall, be it my proudest 
plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that i 

never deserted her." 

X X 

«'Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having 
the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the 
existing Government, and form a new one that suits 
them better. This is a most valuable and sacred r.ght- 
a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the 
^orld." ^ ^ 

-At what point shall we expect the approach of 
danger? Shall we expect some transatlantic military 
giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow ? Never ! 
All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined 
with all the treasures of the earth (our own excepted) 
in their military chest, with a Bonaparte tor a com- 
mander, could not, by force, take a drink from the 
Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a tnal ot 
a thousand years. At what point, then, is this ap- 
proach of danger to be expected ? I answer. If it ever 
reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It can no 
come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must 
ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation ot 
freemen, we must live through all time or die by 
suicide." 



222 ABRA HA 3f LlXCOiy. 

"Passion has helped us [to preserve our free insti- 
tutions], but can do so uo more. It will in future be 
our enemy. Reason — cold, calculating, uti impassioned 
reason — must furnish all the materials for our support 
and defense. Let those materials be molded into gen- 
eral intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a 
reverence for the Constitution and the laws; and then 
our country shall continue to improve, and our Nation, 
revering his name, and permitting no hostile foot to 
pass or desecrate his resting-place, shall be that to hear 
the last trump that shall awaken our Washington. 
Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest as the 
rock of its basis, and as truly as has been said of the 
only greater institution, 'The gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it.'" 



MR. LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE 
ADDRESS.* 



Although the temperance cause has been in pro- 
grress for nearly twenty years, it is apparent to all that 
it is just now being crowned with a degree of success 
hitherto unparalleled. 

The list of its friends is daily swelled by the addition 
of fifties, hundreds, and of thousands. The cause itself 
seems suddenly transformed from a cold, abstract theory 
to a living, breathing, active, and powerful chieftain, 
going forth "conquering and to conquer." The citadels 
of his great adversary are daily being stormed and dis- 
mantled ; his temples and his altars, where the rites of 
his idolatrous worship have long been performed, and 
where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, 
are daily desecrated and deserted. The trump of the 
conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to hill, from sea 
to sea, and from land to land, and calling millions to 
his standard at a blast. 

For this new and splendid success we heartily re- 
joice. That that success is so much greater now than 
heretofore, is doubtless owing to rational causes ; and if 
we would have it continue, we shall do well to inquire 
what those causes are. 



* Delivered before the Springfield Washingtonian Tem- 
perance Society, at the Second Presbyterian Church, Spring- 
field, 111., February 22, 1842. 

223 



224 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The warfare heretofore waged against the demon in- 
temperance has, somehow or other, been erroneous. 
Either the champions engaged or the tactics they 
adopted have not been the most proper. These cham- 
pions, for the most part, have been preachers, lawyers, 
and hired agents. Between these and the mass of man- 
kind there is a want of approachability, if the term be 
admissible, partial at least, fatal to their success. They 
are supposed to have no sympathy of feeling or interest 
with those very persons whom it is their object to con- 
vince and persuade. 

And, again, it is so easy and so common to ascribe 
motives to men of these classes other than those they 
profess to act upon. The preacher, it is said, advocates 
temperance because he is a fanatic, and desires a union 
of the Church and State ; the lawyer from his pride 
and vanity of hearing himself speak; and the hired 
agent for his salary. 

But when one who has long been known as a victim 
of intemperance bursts the fetters that have bound him, 
and appears before his neighbors, "clothed and in hig 
right mind," a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, 
and stands up, with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, 
to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured 
no more forever ; of his once naked and starving chil- 
dren, now clad and fed comfortably; of a wife, long 
weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, 
now restored to health, happiness, and a renewed affec- 
tion ; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to 
be done. How simple his language ! There is a logic 
and an eloquence in it that few with human feelings 
can resist. They can not say that he desires a union 



LINCOLN'S TE3IPERANCE ADDRESS. 225 

of Church and State, for he is not a Church member; 
they can not say he is vain of hearing himself speak, 
for his whole demeanor shows he would gladly avoid 
speaking at all ; they can not say he speaks for pay, for 
he receives none and asks for none. Nor can his sin- 
cerity in any way be doubted, or his sympathy for those 
he would persuade to imitate his example be denied. 

In my judgment, it is to the battles of this new 
class of champions that our late success is greatly, per- 
haps chiefly, owing. But had the old-school champions 
themselves been of the most wise selecting? Was their 
system of tactics the most judicious? It seems to me it 
was not. Too much denunciation against dram-sellers 
and dram-drinkers was indulged in. This, I think, was 
both impolitic and unjust. It was impolitic, because it 
is not much in the nature of man to be driven to 
anything, still less to be driven about that which is ex- 
clusively his own business, and, least of all, where such 
driving is to be submitted to at the expense of pecuni- 
ary interest or burning appetite. When the dram-seller 
and drinker were incessantly told, not in the accents of 
entreaty and persuasion, diffidently addressed by erring 
man to an erring brother, but in the thundering tones 
of anathema and denunciation, with which the lordly 
judge often groups together all the crimes of the felon's 
life, and thrusts them in his face just ere he passes sen- 
tence of death upon him, that they were the authors ot' 
all the vice and misery and crime in the land ; that they 
Avere the manufacturers and material of all the thieves 
and robbers and murderers that infest the earth ; that 
their houses were the workshops of the devil, and that 
their persons should be shunned by all the good and 

15 



22 6 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 

virtuous as moral pestilences, — I say, when they were 
told all this, and in this way, it is not wonderful that 
they were slow — very slow — to acknowledge the truth 
of such denunciations, and to join the ranks of their 
denouncers in a hue and cry against themselves. 

To have expected them to do otherwise than they 
did — to have expected them not to meet denunciation 
with denunciation, crimination with crimination, and 
anathema with anathema — was to expect a reversal of 
human nature, which is God's decree, and can never be 
reversed. 

When the conduct of men is designed to be influ- 
enced, persuasion — kind, unassuming persuasion — should 
ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim " that 
a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall." 
So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, 
first convince him that you are his sincere friend. 
Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, 
say what he will, is the great high-road to his reason, 
and which, when once gained, you will find but little 
trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your 
cause, if, indeed, that cause really be a just one. On 
the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to 
command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned 
and despised, and he will retreat within himself close all 
the avenues to his head and his heart, and though your 
cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest 
lance, harder than steel and sharper than steel can be 
made, and though you throw it with more than Hercu- 
lean force and precision, you shall be no more able to 
pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise 
with a rye-straw. Such is man, and so must he be un- 



LINCOLN'S TE3IPERANCE ADDRESS. 227 

derstood by those who would lead him, even to his own 
best interests. 

On this point the Washingtonians greatly excel the 
temperance advocates of former times. Those whom 
they desire to convince aud persuade are their old friends 
and companions. They know they are not demons, nor 
even the worst of men ; they know that generally they 
are kind, generous, aud charitable, even beyond the ex- 
ample of their more staid and sober neighbors. They 
are practical philanthropists ; aud they glow with a gen- 
erous and brotherly zeal that mere theorizers are inca- 
pable of feeling. Benevolence aud charity possess their 
hearts entirely ; aud out of the abundance of their 
hearts their tongues give utterance. " Love through all 
their actions runs, aud all their words are mild ;" in this 
spirit they speak aud act, and in the same they are 
heard aud regarded. And when such is the temper of 
the advocate, aud such of the audience, no good cause 
can be unsuccessful. But I have said that denun- 
ciations against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers are un- 
just as well as impolitic. Let us see. 

I have not inquired at what period of time the use 
of intoxicating liquors commenced ; nor is it important 
to know. It is sufficient that to all of us who now in- 
habit the world the practice of drinking them is just as 
old as the world itself — that is, we have seen the one 
just as long as we have seeu the other. When all such 
of us as have now reached tlie years of maturity first 
opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found 
intoxicating liquors recognized by everybody, used by 
everybody, repudiated by nobody. It commonly en- 
tered into the first draught of the infant and the last 



228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

draught of the dying man. From the sideboard of the 
parson down to the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer 
it was constantly found. Physicians prescribed it in 
this, that, and the other disease ; Government provided 
it for soldiers and sailors ; and to have a rolling or rais- 
ing, a husking or " hoe-dowu " any where about without 
it, was positively insufferable. So, too, it was every- 
where a respectable article of manufacture and of mer- 
chandise. The making of it Avas regarded as an honor- 
able livelihood, and he who could make most was the 
most enterprising and respectable. Large and small 
manufactories of it were everywhere erected, in which 
all the earthly goods of their owners were invested. 
Wagons drew it from town to town, boats bore it from 
clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from nation to 
nation ; and merchants bought and sold it by wholesale 
and retail with precisely the same feelings on the part 
of the seller, buyer, and bystander as are felt at the sell- 
ing and buying of plows, beef, bacon, or any other of 
the real necessaries of life. Universal public opinioa 
not only tolerated but recognized and adopted its use. 

It is true that even then it was known and acknowl- 
edged that many were greatly injured by it; but none 
seemed to think that the injury arose from the use of a 
bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. 
The victims of it were to be pitied and compassionated, 
just as are the heirs of consumption and other hereditary 
diseases. The failing was treated as a misfortune, and 
not as a crime, or even as a disgrace. 

If, then, what I have been saying is true, is it won- 
derful that some should think and act now as all thought 
and acted twenty yeara ago ; and is it just to assail, con- 



LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 229 

demn, or despise them for doing so? The universal 
sense of mankind on any subject is an argument, or 
at least an influence, not easily overcome. The success 
of the argument in favor of the existence of an over- 
ruling Providence mainly depends upon that sense ; and 
men ought not, in justice, to be denounced for yielding 
to it in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially when 
they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning 
appetites. 

Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old 
reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunk- 
ards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore must be 
turned adrift, and damned without remedy, in order 
that the grace of temperance might abound, to the tem- 
perate then, and to all mankind some hundreds of years 
thereafter. There is in this something so repugnant to 
humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feeling- 
less, that it never did, nor ever can, enlist the enthu- 
siasm of a popular cause. We could not love the man 
who taught it — we could not hear him with patience. 
The heart could not throw open its portals to it; the 
generous man could not adopt it ; it could not mix with 
his blood. It looked so fiendishly selfish, so like throw- 
ing fathers and brothers overboard to lighten the boat 
for our security, that the noble-minded shrank from the 
manifest meanness of the thing. And besides this, the 
benefits of a reformation to be effected by such a system 
were too remote in point of time warmly to engage 
many in its behalf Few can be induced to labor ex- 
clusively for posterity, and none will do it enthusiastic- 
ally. Posterity has done nothing for us ; and theorize 
on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for 



230 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

it unless we are made to think we are, at the same time, 
doing something for ourselves. 

What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit 
to ask or expect a whole community to rise up and labor 
for the temporal happiness of others, after themselves 
shall be consigned to the dust, a majority of which com- 
munity take no pains whatever to secure their own eter- 
nal welfare at no greater distant day ! Great distance 
in either time or space has wonderful power to lull and 
render quiescent the human mind. Pleasures to be en- 
joyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and 
gone, are but little regarded, even in our own cases, 
and much less in the cases of others. 

Still, in addition to this, there is something so ludi- 
crous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way 
off, as to render the whole subject with which they are 
connected easily turned into ridicule. "Better lay 
down that spade you 're stealing, Paddy — if you do n't, 
you'll pay for it at the day of judgment." "Be the 
powers, if ye '11 credit me so long, I'll take another 
jist." 

By the Washingtonians this system of consigning the 
habitual drunkard to hopeless ruin is repudiated. They 
adopt a more enlarged philanthropy. They go for 
present as well as future good. They labor for all now 
living, as well as hereafter to live. They teach hope to 
all — despair to none. As applying to their cause, they 
deny the doctrine of unpardonable sin. As in Chris- 
tianity it is taught, so in this they teach : 

" While the lamp holds out to burn, 
The vilest sinner may return." 



LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 231 

And, what is a matter of the most profound congratu- 
lation, they, by experiment upon experiment and ex- 
ample upon example, prove the maxim to be no less 
true in the one case than in the other. On every hand 
\ve behold those who but yesterday were the chief of 
sinners, now the chief apostles of the cause. Drunken 
devils are cast out by ones, by sevens, by legions, and 
their unfortunate victims, like the poor possessed who 
was redeemed from his long and lonely wanderings in 
the tombs, are puljlishiug to the ends of the earth how 
great things have been done for them. 

To these new champions and this new system of 
tactics our late success is mainly owing, aud to them 
we must mainly look for the final consummation. The 
ball is now rolling gloriously on, and none are so able 
as they to increase its speed and its bulk, to add to its 
momentum and magnitude; even though unlearned in 
letters, for this task none are so well educated. To fit 
them for this work they have been taught in the true 
school. They have been in that gulf from which they 
would teach others the means of escape. They have 
passed that prison wall which others have long declared 
impassable, and who that has no|t shall dare to weigh 
opinions with them as to the mode of passing? 

But if it be true, as I have insisted, that those who 
have suffered by intemperance personally and have re- 
formed are the most powerful and efficient instruments 
to push the reformation to ultimate success, it does not 
follow that those who have not suflTered have no part 
left them to perform. Whether or not the world would 
be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from 
it of all intoxicating drinks seems to me not now an 



232 ABRAHAM LINCOim 

open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the 
affirmative with their tongues, and I believe all the rest 
acknowledge it in their hearts. 

Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in doing what 
the good of the whole demands ? Shall he who can 
not do much be for that reason excused if he do noth- 
ing? "But," says one, "what good can I d) by sign- 
ing the pledge? I never drink, even without signing." 
Tliis question has already been asked and answered more 
than a million of times. Let it be answered once more. 
For the man, suddenly or in any other way, to break 
off from the use of drams who has indulged in them for 
a long course of years, and until his appetite for them 
has grown ten or a hundred fold stronger and more crav- 
ing than any natural appetite can be, requires a most 
powerful moral effort. In such an undertaking he 
needs every moral support and influence that can possi- 
bly be brought to his aid and thrown around him. And 
not only so, but every moral prop should be taken from 
whatever argument might rise in his mind to lure him 
to his backsliding. AVheu he casts his eyes around him 
he should be able to see all that he respects, all that he 
admires, all that he loves, kindly and anxiously point- 
ing him onward, and none beckoning him back to his 
former miserable " wallowing in the mire." 

But it IS said by some that men will think and act 
for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or anything 
else because his neighbors do; and that moral influence 
is not that powerful engine contended for. Let us ex- 
amine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain 
this position most stiffly what compensation he will ac- 
cept to go to Church some Sunday and sit during the 



LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 233 

sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head? Not a 
trifle, I '11 venture. And why not ? There would be noth- 
ing irreligious in it, nothing immoral, nothing uncom- 
fortable — then why not? Is it not because there would 
be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then 
it is the influence of fashion ; and what is the influence 
of fashion but the influence that other people's actions 
have on our own actions — the strong inclination each of 
us feels to do as we see all our neighbors do ? Nor is 
the influence of fashion confined to any particular thing 
or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as 
another. Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold 
our names from the temperance pledge as for husbands 
to wear their wives' bonnets to Church, and instances 
will be just as rare in the one case as the other. 

"But," say some, "we are no drunkards, and we 
shall not acknowledge ourselves such by joining a re- 
formed drunkards' society, whatever our influence 
might be." Surely no Christian will adhere to this 
objection. 

If they believe as they profess, that Omnipotence 
condescended to take on himself the form of sinful 
man, and as such to die an ignominious death for their 
sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the 
infinitely lesser condescension for the temporal and per- 
haps eternal salvation of a large, erring, and unfortu- 
nate class of their fellow-creatures. Nor is the conde- 
scension very great. In my judgment such of us as 
have never fallen victims have been spared more from 
the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral 
superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe, if 
we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and 



234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with 
those of any other class. 

There seems ever to have been a proneness in the 
brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice — the 
demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted iu 
sucking the blood of genius and generosity. What one 
of us but can call to mind some relative more promis- 
ing iu youth thau all his fellows, who has fallen a sacri- 
fice to his rapacity ? He ever seems to have gone forth 
like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay, 
if not the first, the fairest born of every family. Shall 
he now be arrested in his desolating career ? In that 
arrest all can give aid that will, and avIio shall be ex- 
cused that can and will not ? Fur around as human 
breath has ever blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, 
our sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains of 
moral death. To all the living everywhere we cry : 
" Come, sound the moral trump, that these may rise 
and stand up an exceeding great army." " Come from 
the four winds, O breath ! and breathe upon these slain, 
that they may live." If the relative grandeur of revo- 
lutions shall be estimated by the great amount of hu- 
man misery they alleviate, and the small amount they 
inflict, then, indeed, will this be the grandest the world 
shall ever have seen. 

Of our political revolution of 1776 we are all justly 
proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom 
far exceeding that of any other nations of the earth. 
In it the world has found a solution of the long-mooted 
problem as to the capability of man to govern himself. 
Iu it Avas the germ Avhich has vegetated, and still is 



LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 235 

to grow and expand into the universal liberty of 
mankind. 

But with all these glorious results, past, present, 
and to come, it had its evils too. It breathed forth 
famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire ; and long, Icng 
after, the orphans' cry and the widows' wail continued 
to break the sad silence that ensued. These were the 
price, the iuevitable price, paid for the blessings it bought. 

Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we 
shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery 
manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed — in it, more of 
want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. 
By it, no orphans starving, no widows weeping ; by it, 
none "wounded in feeling, none injured in interest. Even 
the dram-maker and dram-seller will have glided into 
other occupations so gradually as never to have felt the 
change, and will stand ready to join all others in the 
universal song of gladness. And what a noble ally this 
to the cause of political freedom! With such an aid, its 
march can not fail to be on and on, till every son of 
earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching 
draughts of perfect liberty ! Happy day, when, all ap- 
petites controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subju- 
gated, mind, all-conquering mind, shall live and move, 
the monarch of the world ! Glorious consummation ! 
Hail, fall of fury! Reign of reason, all hail ! 

And when the victory shall be complete — when 
there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the 
earth — how proud the title of that Land which may 
truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both 
those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory I 



236 ABRAHA3I LINCOLN, 

How nobly distinguished that people who shall have 
planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and 
moral freedom of their species ! 

This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of 
the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate 
this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth — 
long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still 
mightiest in moral reformation. On that name a eulogy 
is expected. It can not be. To add brightness to the 
sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike im- 
possible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pro- 
nounce the name, and in its naked, deathless splendor 
leave it shining on. 



(K^B (Enb, 



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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

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FOUR WONDERFUL YEARS: 

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Introduction by Rev. W. I. Haven, M. A. 

i6nio. Cloth. 121 pages. Illustrated^ . . Net, 60 cents. 

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JBEVISEO EDITION. 



PRACTICAL HINTS ON 

JUNIOR LEAGUE WORK. 

By WILBERT P. FERGUSON, B. D. 
Introduction by J. F. BERRY, D. D., Editor of the Epworth Herald. 

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Sketches of Lttther, Cranmer, Knox, Wesi^ey, 
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Db. W. F. McDowell, President of the University of Denver, 
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CORNER WORK; Or, Look Up and Lift Up. 

By MYRA GOODWIN PLANTZ. 

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"In the world of darkness, 
So we must sliine — 
Yoti in your small corner, 
And I in mine.''' — Song. 

_ An excellent story for the young, based on Epworth League 
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